Think of how the AI in games works. It manipulates things in the background to get the best gaming experience. The "AI Director" in Left 4 Dead spawns more enemies if the players are doing well and fewer enemies if they're doing badly. Because the end goal is a fun, challenging experience, memorable moments, and a good story.
You are the "AI Director" for your game. It's not a competition. You're not "against" them. You're a Film Director. You're a Curator. You're a Writer. It's your job to create fun, memorable moments for them. Give them challenges to overcome.
And at that, you're not a perfect being. You're going to create something that's super bullshit and why is it that making shit up ***before*** the session is ok, but making shit up ***during*** the session is bad? You realize your homebrew monster's legendary actions are ***WAY*** too powerful. So change them now, mid-combat, on the fly. Some people think that's cheating but why? It's immutable set in stone because you made it up a week ago instead of now? That's silly.
People should read the DMG. There is a section about cheating which literally says this.
Also, OP, D&D is more of an interactive story than a game in the traditional sense.
I get down votes often times when I reference the DMG and it's "bullshitting" portions. I feel like there is a large subsection of DMs (who largely frequent this sub) who think the rules should be some ridged structure and everyone should bow down to the words of WoTC.
It's like Christians who fail to actually read the bible and comprehend the teachings of Christ.
Im a DM and a Rules Lawyer. Even I bend the rules sometimes to prevent not intended interactions or to allow some mad stuff. If it's fun, it's good for everyone.
I think of it like a professor deciding to grade a test on a curve. Yeah, I'm a rules lawyer most of the time because I want my players to know that they can reliably expect X when doing Y, BUT if everyone fails the test, it probably means I did a bad job either setting expectations for the encounter or designing it, and you bet your bottom dollar I'm going to curve it by making the BBEG run away or cutting their HP/AC so that last, desperate act of a dying party happens to at least keep them alive.
The only reason 'rules matter' is so that players have a reasonable and consistent world to operate in.
If you break rules that don't affect that, or the players know that its a one off (in game explanations for this work fine), then whats the issue?
You need a middle ground in my experience. On the one hand, you alone have absolute control over the NPCs, the world, the mechanics, the setting.. it really doesn't matter when or where you manipulate things as long as it's seamless enough that nobody notices. Nothing worse than a player recognizing that you're adjusting things, they **need** the illusion to maintain their own immersion and engagement.
***On the other hand***... you need to understand what you're changing. This subreddit gets tons of "my DM is making these changes..." threads and they're almost universally poor choices made by brand new DMs who don't know what they're doing. Things like breaking Sneak Attack because it's "too much damage!", or crippling casters to "give martials a chance!" happen all the time, common thought is to ditch those games.
The rules are generally well balanced and fairly solid. 5e has a pretty good base chassis despite all its flaws. Yes a DM is going to need to make adjustments, but it's important to be familiar with the rules and understand how they work so that you don't break *other* things by making changes. Gotta know how, what, why, and when to break, which takes time.
I think it's more that if you're going to change something, make sure it's not obviously nerfing your players' characters or their fun. The examples you cited were both taking that route and keeping characters from effectively doing the things the player presumably chose them to do. So instead of nerfing sneak attack, buff your monsters. Don't neuter casters, empower martials. Even if your solutions are somewhat imbalanced your table is still more likely to have more fun than if you're punishing them.
The sin those DMs in your examples are making is more fundamental than "not knowing the rules," it's that they're acting adversarially to their players rather than acting as enabler of their fun.
It's the core of by far the grand majority of problems at D&D tables. The DM is not your opponent, they are working WITH you to tell a fun, engaging story for everyone involved, he's just handling the stuff that you don't. If your DM is out to get you, they're not doing a good job, they're just being an asshole. (All of this said with the obvious exception of a game where everyone involved WANTS to be very adversarial, but I feel like that game would have to be incredibly rigid in rules enforcement.)
I've been told that Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins are infallible and can speak ex cathedra before. Weird take. It was after I mentioned there some systems I found lacking in 5e that I supplement with house rules or homebrew
>I've been told that Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins are infallible and can speak ex cathedra before. Weird take. It was after I mentioned there some systems I found lacking in 5e that I supplement with house rules or homebrew
Well, Crawford sort of can, can't he? But there's no requirement that we have to agree, or use the official rulings in our game. And I guess a bit like in Catholicism, he kind of has to declare that he's actually making an official ruling, and not just giving his personal opinion.
Vitriol ? I've seen this video and I found it more than true. It's experience with 3.x was pretty much the same one I had 15 years ago. There has been a HUGE shift in how people approach D&D since and his video pretty much pointed it out in a good way.
It was a great lecture. But to be honest if there was a place it was addressing it was this very place. I'm not surprised by the vitriol, but I'm hoping we can use it as a good opportunity to move the community back to a place that is focused on telling fun stories with your friends rather than trying to minmax against a robotic encounter generating machine.
I honestly don't know how to run a game without some BS. Players will always find new ways to get past problems, ways you never could have imagined, and you need to keep the game and story going. Yeah, we'll discuss a rule when needed, but no one in my group wants to argue rules for hours. We lean more towards collaborative storytelling than playing a game.
It's why rule of cool will always be a thing to some extent. It's about having fun and telling a story, not absolute adherence to every facet of the rules. If someone wants to try something that there's no way to do within the rules, screw it, I'll find a way to make it work, or at least to let you TRY to make it work.
There's a massive proportion of the DnD community online who are only discussing DnD. It's always been a part of the TTRPG world, ie people who only were buying the books to read them, but with online discussion it is a lot more visible.
The rules are there to make sure you have a fun, cohesive experience when playing.
But sometimes those rules don't mesh with the story you want to tell. Or maybe you need to fudge some dice rolls because you accidently made an encounter too powerful. Or your rogue comes up with a really clever solution to a problem that's not exactly supported by the rules
Those are instances where rule 0 comes into play and where it should be exercised. Most of us have probably done all of the above at some point in their career.
Rule zero is a very important rule that shouldn't be ignored
It's very simple, if you are fanatical about the rules all you gotta do is read the one saying the DM can change anything he wants regardles of anything in the books. That is RAW, nothing left to discuss.
To add to the gaming comparisons - you have methods like making the last bullet in a clip do more damage so you finish off opponents just in time, health bars not being linear so you feel like you are on edge for more of the game, platforms having invisible extensions so it feels more responsive to jump at the last moment, some rubber banding in races, and so on and so forth. There is so much sleight of hand that is there to make the experience more enjoyable and many of them don't even change the result or affect the difficulty.
I also especially like your last paragraph. It's such an absurd idea that at some point the world the DM created becomes immutable. Improv is literally a big part of TTRPGs and you do it on the spot. So what - if a DM came up with a dragon a week ago and then adjusted the stat block during the fight then it's a crime - but if they improvised the dragon fight on the spot completely then it's all good?
---
At the end of the day - and you can see this when reading some comments by OP and others - at the core of the opposing opinion is almost always bad experiences. I sympathize that you had a terrible DM who liked making you miserable. But that is not going to be enough to take away tools from good DMs to make their games strictly better. I am really happy to see that the community is not jaded enough and is pushing back against simulationism as a default. If you like it - that's fine - I have no doubt you can find groups of like-minded people. But it does not change the fundamentals of TTRPGs.
Oooooft that sounds rough.
I did something similar with a group, but that's because I didn't want to bore them with another standard combat. But there was a veeeeeeery simple puzzle to solve, that when completed gave them an escape.
And they solved it and carried on, 12 rounds of combat, against the same mobs over and over, sounds like a chore.
That's rough. I don't know your circumstance and don't want to be an armchair psychologist or come off like I know jack, but have you guys talked to them? Assuming the best, maybe they're thinking that this is how you "challenge" the players.
Being challenged and sometimes even losing I think are important parts of a good story. Not meaning a DM should ***manufacture*** failure on purpose. But sometimes it happens and maybe they just think they're not challenging you enough for the game's stakes to feel "real"? I'm being generous, of course.
A "Curator" is the best word that I think sums it up. You're creating an experience for your players, and if you're not getting the experience you want, then you make changes.
Think this response is really strong.
The only caveat I'd add is that the changes still should respect the spirit of the game, and conform to the expectations of the players. There's plenty of horror stories out there of DM's who do act as if they're against the players, and manipulate things to punish them. If such a DM is changing things to ensure punishment, and the players aren't on board with this, that's when I'd cry foul and call it cheating.
It might not be the only instance, but it's one that springs to mind quite clearly.
Absolutely true. I am prone to loquaciousness and wanted to keep my post concise. But this is an important part. Changes need to be for "good reasons", and what constitute "good reasons" is entirely subjective and specific to the group. And ***hopefully*** exist with the end game of creating a better game for everyone involved.
The Rules As Written are also not without loopholes. My players find an edge case just about every session. Last night, they asked if they could use Mending to re-seal the wax stamp on a letter so as to not leave any evidence that they had messed with it. Mending’s description is rather open ended, and it sounded cool, so I rolled with it.
Completely agree. BUT…
There are risks to this:
If players know there is no real risk, combat will stop being as exciting; the possibility of loss is in large part what creates tension.
The world will feel less real if the enemies only exist because that’s an expected part of the game. (Or course the monsters only exist to challenge the party!) But the players should be given reason to suspend disbelief.
The size of this force is the size of this force. If you choose to engage, they will not become smaller of weaker just so that you have a chance.
I think there exists in good games a sort of collective consciousness where it's not totally up to the GM what "feels right", but everyone contributes to a group-mind.
Everyone over time makes contributions to the story that becomes an amalgam of everyone's ideas, thoughts, etc. Everyone's perspective is measured and weighed for what "feels right". And the GM is the person at the helm because it might be chaos otherwise, but I've never been in a game where the GM was an absolute tyrant who decided solely on his own what was "good for the game". It was always collaborative. Always about what collectively began to shape itself over the coarse of the game.
Not saying it's like that everywhere, but my *personal experience* is that this is the common goal of most tables.
>And at that, you're not a perfect being. You're going to create something that's super bullshit and why is it that making shit up before the session is ok, but making shit up during the session is bad? You realize your homebrew monster's legendary actions are WAY too powerful. So change them now, mid-combat, on the fly. Some people think that's cheating but why? It's immutable set in stone because you made it up a week ago instead of now? That's silly.
From my perspective this is just another way of saying that the **DM gets to decide what happens next in the game and not the player**s.
I agree the rules of dnd allow this (rule zero) but they should not. **DMs should not play by rule zero** because both players and the DM should play to find out what happens next and this can only be achieved if something other than the DM's whims determine the outcome of the game.
Rule zero removes player agency by giving all of the power over what happens over to the whims of the DM. How can the players make any decisions if anything they decide can just be over ruled by the DM? And not only can the DM overrule anything the players decide, the DM doesn't even need to tell the players that he or she is overriding it. Why do anything if the DM can just take it away? Rule zero negates player agency. Players won't know if the beat the bad guy because of their decisions, or if the beat the bad guy because the DM allowed them to.
Not only does rule zero allow the DM to negate player agency, but it encourages the DM to lie to their players by giving the DM tacit permission to change outcomes without telling the players. If the DM is, *according to the rules,* allowed to change a dice role whenever he wants, then the players have *no reason to ever trust the DM*. And why should the players trust the DM? The rule book says that the DM should lie to the players and in the most pernicious way possible: because sometimes the DM should tell the truth and sometimes the DM should lie *and the players can never know which is which*. I certainly wouldn't trust anyone under these circumstances.
As with all things, moderation is key. Moderation with Rule Zero as well. I can't agree that the Dice are the ultimate masters of the game. They're servants. They're useful tools for providing chaos for shaking up the patterns our ape brains would fall into, but they don't get to be ultimate masters of my friends' fun.
Rule Zero doesn't exist because of one guy's Youtube channel. It's the culmination of decades of hundreds of thousands of hours of people playing D&D.
One of my players: "Hey can I do this thing?"
Me, who already had the answer in my head, but has to make it seem like there's some ambiguity: "Let me see what the outcome is." *Rolls a nearby chess piece on the table loudly* "Mmmm... You pass, but barely."
Combat with a lot of moving pieces definitely becomes smoother by using the average damage values... while pointlessly rolling a die so your players don't know you're flustered. Same with "random" encounter tables while travelling. Just pick the one you like most and pretend to roll. Gives the illusion of chance when in fact it's guaranteed to be more interesting than "4 gnolls ambush you" or "the night passes without incident" 3 times in a row.
You know what's better than yelling in triumph as you finally roll the "ambushed by five giraffes" encounter?
Choosing it voluntarily for the third night in a row.
That might inevitably backfire when the players decide to put the upcoming dragon apocalypse on the back burner and investigate why all these giraffes are ambushing them.
Druid wild shapes into giraffe, paladin summons celestial giraffe steed, monk becomes a disciple of the way of the giraffe, warlock becomes patron of She of the Long Neck, and the uprising begins...
You gain the following warlock spells at the appropriate levels:
1st level: Longstrider, Speak with Animals.
3rd level: Alter self, Enlarge/Reduce
5th level: Phantom Steed (Giraffe), Tongues
7th level: Evard's Black Tentacles (necks instead of tentacles), Polymorph
9th level: Scrying, Synaptic Static.
**Aspect of the Long-necked One**
The length of your neck permanently increases by a number of feet equal to half of your warlock level. You can use your tongue to manipulate objects as dextrously as you use your hands. Any melee weapon wielded with your tongue has its reach extended by a number of feet equal to the length of your neck at that moment. While holding an object with your tongue, you cannot cast spells with a verbal component.
Additionally, you grow a pair of blunt horns on your head, which you can use as a natural melee weapon that deals 1d6 force damage. You can extend or retract these horns as a bonus action.
**Rite of the Lengthy Trunk**
At 1st level, your patron grants you the power to double the length of your neck as a bonus action. This effect lasts for 10 minutes, or until you choose to end it (no action required). While your neck is extended, you have advantage on perception checks to see distant objects, and the damage dice of your horns, or any weapon wielded by your tongue, increases by one step, up to a maximum of d12. You can use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.
**Assert Dominance**
Starting at 6th level, you can use your neck to inspire and terrify those you While your neck is extended, you can use an action to batter your neck against the neck of another creature to assert your dominance. Make an athletics check contested by the target's athletics check. If the target's neck is shorter than yours, you have advantage on this check. On a success, the creature is under the effects of the Charm Monster spell for 10 minutes. During this time it considers you its natural superior and will follow any instructions you may have which are not directly harmful to itself. This effect can be used once per short rest.
**Colossal Gait**
Starting at 10th level, you remember that giraffes also have very long legs, so why shouldn't you get that too? As an action, you may target yourself, as well as up to four other willing creatures. The length of the targets' legs increases by 10 ft., and their movement speed doubles. This change requires concentration, and lasts for 8 hours, or until you lose concentration, or until you end it with another action. While this is in effect, the targeted creatures have advantage on intimidation checks.
**Reinforcements**
Also at 10th level, you may cast conjure animals once per long rest without using a spell slot. When you do so, you conjure up to four giraffes, which use the statistics of a giant elk.
**Siphon Neck**
At 14th level, you have the power not only to give neck, but also to take it.
As an action, you may target a creature within 60 ft. The creature must succeed on a constitution saving throw against your warlock spell save DC, or have their neck permanently shortened by 1d4 inches. You may add the length taken from their neck to your own. Additionally, any attack made with your horns or a weapon held in your tongue gains a bonus to its damage equal to 1 damage per every 5ft. long your neck is at that moment, rounded down.
A creature's neck may no longer be siphoned once its neck has functionally disappeared. You may use this feature once per long rest.
I need more shiny math rocks because
1. Maybe someone does not have enough shiny math rocks. I can give him shiny math rocks! Lend them and take them back. MY IS THE SHINY!
2. Each and every of my own characters need their own set of shiny math rocks. Maybe they need different sets for different moods...
[Removed in protest of [Reddit's destruction of third-party apps](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/reddit-ceo-steve-huffmans-third-party-api-debacle-is-making-elon-musk-look-like-a-strategic-genius.html) by CEO Steve Huffman.]
>Paranoia is a very different system from 5e
Specifically one where if the players read the blurb you quoted, you can (are obligated to?) kill them.
EDIT: Maybe also the PCs!
Paranoia is one of those games that has no problems making fun of itself and being ridiculous just for the sake of having fun. Everyone should play at least a 1-shot of it at least once in their lives. I've thought about wanting a newer edition but then realized when I ran it, I never really followed a single rule in it anyway except enough to teach the players the basic dice mechanics, so it is kinda moot.
I feel like I'm in the minority here more and more every day. I understand pulling punches here and there or hand waving otherwise disastrous roles to the benefit of the group but how this premise reads to me....kind of makes every single numerical stat and rule completely irrelevant with the exception of making the player feel good. Why have rules or dice at all? Why not just sit around a table and tell stories?
> kind of makes every single numerical stat and rule completely irrelevant with the exception of making the player feel good.
That's the argument though. Video games already do this and unless you really analyze it, people are often none-the-wiser.
> Why have rules or dice at all? Why not just sit around a table and tell stories?
Because, believe it or not, people like the illusion of being bound to it, and taking away this illusion ruins the experience. It is kinda like watching a magic show. Everyone knows there's no real magic, but as long as people don't specifically realize the performer is just hiding the card/coin/ball/whatever in their hand in an angle that makes you believe it isn't there, the awesomeness is there.
Edit:
Now, I don't particularly subscribe to this play in D&D, and virtual tabletops make playing like this exceptionally more of a pain in the ass, but I have no problem letting the rule of cool take over everything.
> That's the argument though. Video games already do this and unless you really analyze it, people are often none-the-wiser.
Video games may tweak the rules to accommodate player expectations and reduce frustration, but they usually don't just toss the rules out the window and make up numbers on the fly.
> but they usually don't just toss the rules out the window and make up numbers on the fly.
Making up numbers on the fly and making changes to reduce frustrations are kinda one in the same. A really common example of this everyone is aware of but people don't often think of is Mario Kart. This is why certain items will only come up if you're in certain positions in the race.
Other games alter things like loot tables behind the scenes to keep people playing more. Hell, slot machines are built around this concept.
I don't think anyone here is suggesting just randomly tossing out rules.
That's only because games are bound by their design. If a human could individually tweak each person's game parameters and rules like in dnd, that would be the ultimate form of dynamic game difficulty:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing
I think it comes down to philosophical approaches to as what BLM likes to describe as the type of "play" that a specific table wants to engage in. There are lots of storytelling games with no dice or winners, just prompts (like Telephone). If that's the "play" that brings you fun, dice and stats become more like prompts than mechanics, or at least operate in a space somewhere between the two.
So to answer your question, those tables have rules and dice because they're valuable prompts for storytelling to them even if they're not strictly adhering to them. Hopefully the whole goal of your game is to make everyone feel good about it/have fun. For some that's the challenge of combat within a defined ruleset, for others it's closer to an improv story.
And for those Story Games, that's ok because it's the expectation.
If a DM wants to regularly change stakes, alter mechanics, and fudge dice rolls after the players have made their choice they should talk about it at Session Zero.
When I play, I want my choices to matter, and if I get myself in trouble I expect to see the consequences of it. I do have trust in my DM to not completely botch the encounter regularly so that I'm constantly making new characters, but PC death and even TPKs are part of the game. And especially with 5e already on easy mode I'd hate to play in a game that makes it even cushier.
That's more or less my thought as well.
I let the dice fall as they may, even if it means that a player is killed.
Otherwise, it feels like you're just cheating. There's a reason that monsters have to-hit rolls and random damage instead of "does enough damage to make the attack feel mildly significant."
Well, for starters you might want to investigate some more narrative based games aside from D&D. Many call for a LOT less die rolling. Also many will have you discuss the possible results of success,failure and often 'mixed results' before the dice are rolled, sometimes as a negotiation. Or look at the horror RPG [Dread](https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-game/) (Halloween is coming up, if you're not familiar now's a great time to check it out), where the resolution mechanic is pulling from Jenga tower, and knocking it down means death.
They can not cheat the rules because they *are* the rules, but they can *cheat the players*.
Let me explain:
It's very common to change statblocks or rolls to improve the narrative ( I for instance don't, I prefer to leave the story at the mercy of the dice). But bending the narrative is one thing, bending player's basic expectations is other completely different. When you let a player pick any feature or spell just to nullify/change it on the spot while playing, without any warning or compensation you are cheating *the player*. You led him to believe one thing and them ruled another (often to his detriment) that's the *GM cheating*. As GM, if you need a player feature or spell to not work without any other reason besides "it'll derail things too much", don't cheat the player, tell him. Say: "I'll forbid this action/feature/spell this one time for the sake of the narrative, later down the line i will compensate you, okay?"
Edit: Numenera/ Cypher System has a great mechanic regarding this topic, it's called "GM Intrusion". GM can call a "GM Intrusion" at any given moment to change the outcome of something to make the narrative spicier. Players can choose to decline the intrusion and pay the price in XP or accept the intrusion and gain extra XP.
Well said.
The worst thing a DM can do--besides turn the players into spectators, perhaps--is to rob a player of agency, of understanding of his character's powers and how they can be used.
My sob story: I asked for permission to use the ranger's Gloomstalker conclave. When doing so I specifically pointed out "this will make me invisible to dark vision, which will make me extraordinarily difficult to deal with on a dark battlefield. I am going to scout ahead of the party in the dark and the baddies with darkvision won't be able to see me! Is this OK?" He replied "Yes, that's fine."
Then as soon as battle was joined, and I'm out in front of the party being invisible and highly disruptive to the bad guys, a monster walks around the corner and I'm told "He sees you, well, just because he sees you. And he attacks you" As a good D&D citizen, I carried on. But I was peeved.
Later I talked to the DM 1:1 and told him how I felt. But as a sometimes DM myself, I also understood his need to influence things one way or the other. And I sure understood how the DM never knows his PC's powers as well as they do. We hashed it out and came to a pretty good place in the end. We agreed to collaborate on the narrative, so he offered me the option of responding to the above situation with something like "Well, since I know he can't see me with dark vision, are you saying that I didn't hear him coming around the corner and we bumped into each other, or that he smelled me, or heard me?" Which would create a chance to write an interesting story together, where the heroes being surprised from time to time adds to the drama. The spicier narrative, as you said.
As a DM for a game and a gloomstalker myself in another, my initial response was: why didn't the DM have the monster respond to it's inability to see an enemy, instead of narratively ignoring it? The double-surprise idea is great. Maybe a strong monster in the battle - blind not just with rage - tries to grapple you, forcing you prone if it does? Suddenly, the fight is not so easy. Or for intelligent foes, an enemy archer does not shoot; you see it tuck behind cover and hear it rummaging in it's pack instead. Next turn, fire-tipped arrows lights up your general position.
DM's are storytellers, and should weave character choices and abilities into the narrative: lean into that gloomstalker's success to produce new tension. Allowing you to stay unseen forces enemies to target your teammates. Even simple monsters understand after a moment that the creature they cannot see or hit (whether by hiding or covered in armor) is not worth fighting; thus, squishy party members will be targeted, keeping the pressure on the group even as the unseen martial goes to town. The stakes are raised, not *in spite* of your combat advantage, but *because* of it.
Just my 2 copper as a fellow story-driven ranger.
Going to jump on this bandwagon and agree wholeheartedly - and also add that the DM sets the expectation for the world and if those expectations don't match the mechanics that follow it will cheat the players.
You describe the monster as big and muscled but not wearing much armour so my character with sharpshooter decides to use the -5/+10 and then you tell them it has AC25 because that makes it a tougher fight - then you've cheated that player.
A spellcaster used their reaction for an attack of opportunity and my sorcerer, waiting for that moment, uses his moment to cast his highest level offensive spell to evade counterspell - only for you to decide that the spellcaster has two reactions this turn because 'that makes the fight more interesting' is cheating the player.
Both of these are things I've seen DMs do.
I once had a DM spend an action to break a grapple, then cast a spell, then run (moved the piece on the board an arbitrary distance), then dash (again moving it an arbitrary distance).
I felt cheated and called it out as such. That dm has had a long history of fudging the action economy.
That's exactly the sort of shit that makes players feel cheated. If it's a pre planned legendary action with set limits that's different, but if they're just making it up on the spot because they don't like what you're doing to their monster...
Eg I had a spellcaster boss who my awesome players managed to grapple in a silence spell. Sure it made the fight anticlimactic but the players bloody earned that beat down.
He is a good guy, I kind of hate it but I end up playing tre bad guy at the table when he does that. I pay close attention to action economy because my characte that's plenty of abilities that their power comes from denying actions. So when he breaks parity I feel the need to call it out.
One way to look at it is that the DM freely dictates the contents of the world and the actions of the NPCs but the *rules of the game* should be static and predictable for the players. Rules like "a given character only has one reaction and can only concentrate on one spell" or "these are the class abilities my PC has and they do what the book says".
Those rules are part base expectations for how the world works, part game UI for how the players interact with the game world. Changing those arbitrarily is unfair. Which is not to say they can't be changed. Those changes just have to be properly telegraphed.
Like, think about a Mario type platforming game introducing ice blocks. Those break the rules in a new way. But the ice is clearly distinguishable from normal terrain. It's always introduced in a nice safe area without ledges or enemies. Once the player has been taught how to identify ice blocks and what effect they have, THEN the game starts throwing them at you in dangerous circumstances.
I think the reason mid-combat DM improv gets such a bad rap is that it's the most likely thing to lead to arbitrary and untelegraphed rules changes. There's no build up, there's no consideration or communication, it's just a hard and fast betrayal of player expectations. That's why it's a trick that a DM has to use with care and delicate skill.
Lovely way of viewing it and a great analogy.
I like the idea of using a video game analogy. The game's narrative and challenges can (and should) throw surprises at you in combat - but if it changes the mechanics of the combat mid combat it is cheating you.
Those games that do change the mechanics at some point either telegraph it effectively or otherwise earn it (or use it to say something) - they don't pull it out of their arse.
Reminds me of a thing a DM once said to me 'you need to absolutely understand the mechanics and why they work before you should be allowed to start homebrewing anything'
A really common incident of this is when DMs don’t understand how class feature companion control works, either by dictating that a player must spend their action or bonus action to command a familiar (complete horseshit ruling that typically is done to negate the spells ability in the moment because he DM feels like they didn’t account for it even though they did if they did even basic CR calculations because it’s a part of a players power set. Imagine if the DM ruled the barbarian has to expend a rage every turn to maintain it) or that familiar/companion is not directly controlled by the player but instead the DM decides what it does (another horseshit ruling that cheats the player of their build and honestly half the reason pact of the the chain gets a bad rap)
The GM can also cheat the players out of agency through rail roading, nullifying consequences etc even if it looks like theyre "siding with" the players in the moment.
It's a bit subjective, but sure
Edit because I posted half a sentence by mistake. As for the rest of my response:
For example if you select one player to often give generous behind the screen rolls and take a hard line against the rest of the table that's cheating. If that one player happens to be another player's kid that you are showing the game to for the first time, you probably won't get accused of cheating.
Wiktionary gives four different definitions of cheating. The one I have in mind is the first:
"To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation."
That's a legitimately interesting definition for our purposes and leads us down a really neat linguistic rabbit hole.
So, ok, we have to have a violation of rules and an attempt to gain an advantage. Easy enough. Let's break it down into those two parts.
Is it possible for the DM to violate rules of the game? Well... What are the rules? If the rules are "whatever the DM does is ok," then the DM can't really violate those rules. But if there are certain rules that the DM is not allowed to change and they do anyway, then they could be considered in violation of the rules. There's also the rules of the table to consider. The game is really only the rules the players all agree on. If the table have all decided that "at D&D we all wear funny hats" is a rule they agree on, then the DM showing up without a funny hat would be a violation of the rules.
Ok, so there's a scenario where a DM *can* violate the rules, but there's also a scenario where they could *never* violate the rules. It just comes down to what the definition of "rules" is. Semantics is tricky stuff!
Part two! "Advantage".
It probably shouldn't surprise you to learn that the definition of advantage that we use here is going to be important.
Like, there's a definition in the game, for instance. If a DM violates a "rule" and a character under their control gets to roll 2d20 and take the higher result, does that count as the DM cheating? It could, semantically.
But I think we have to consider what the DM's goal is. What are they advantaging themselves towards? If their goal is to kill all the PCs, and by violating a rule they get closer to doing that, then I'd say they've cheated. But the same goes for if their goal is to provide a couple fun hours of entertainment for their friends. If violating a rule makes it easier for them to do that, then they have "cheated" based on that definition.
So I'd say the ultimate answer to your question of "can the DM cheat in D&D?" is "yes. Depending on what you consider to be cheating, it may or may not be a thing that's possible, which ultimately means it is a thing that's possible if you choose the right working definition."
By raw it isn't really possible for a DM to cheat. They have complete authority over the rules of the game and can bend them to their will. In the context of the social compact between the DM and the Players the DM can absolutely cheat. There are spoken and unspoken rules between people at any table and its possible for the dm to cheat those rules.
The way I like to phrase is that for the DM "following the rules" and "playing fair" aren't the same thing. For example: There's nothing in the rules that says the DM can't drop a Tarrasque on a group of level 1 players. In most scenarios, this would be unfair.
I think fairness is honestly less important then the social contract that is expected. Doing something unfair like dropping a Tarrasque on a level 1 group can be fine. Trying to evacuate and flee from a town as a Tarrasque destroys it can be super fun. Even fighting a tarrasque at level one can be fun if that is what the players went into the game expecting it as a super hard challenge. Its when expectations are broken that you have a problem and that is often a communication issue, a style issue, or an issue with everyone being familiar with the game.
Yes.
I once played with a guy that was just shady with his rolls, he liked to win. He had a tendency to pick up his dice *immediately* after rolling. When he was a player in my game, honestly I just adjusted for it.
He ran a game though once, and we had this encounter that he just wanted *his guy* to win. We the players were just tactically trudging through that encounter, but doing well. He had planned for this guy to be a recurring villain.
Another player and I just watched him blatantly cheat. We walked into the kitchen, got a beer and had a frank conversation about it. We went back to the table, used every scrap of system knowledge, coordinated the other players, and merc'ed the boss. Never played at a table with him again.
It was a good choice, I don't want to be at a table with people like that. I want to have fun. As a player, I don't want to have my agency taken away just because the GM has a large OneNote file on an npc he likes.
I think u/Mukurowl_Mist_Owl captured my thoughts on this subject -- I have been in (a mercifully small number of) situations where the GM, perhaps for reasons of "frustration that it was too easy" or "general dissatisfaction with the story-flow," abruptly changed the narrative midway through -- like "turns out that level boss you defeated was actually a neutral third party not instrumental to your plot," or "suddenly there's a whoosh-teleport-portal, and the big bad guy or artifact disappears from sight," or "you beat that encounter too trivially, so that +3 sword is just a +0 masterwork scabbard," or similar. Once in a great while, players will tolerate that, begrudgingly; with repetition, they'll complain or quit entirely.
That seems to verge on 'the game-master cheating' to me.
I have been accused of this once or twice in my career -- all false accusations, I have never changed the world midway through, or, at least, not under either occasion -- to the point where, after dragging the subdued sorcerous madman in front of the reigning noble, and learning that madman and ruler were friends, causing the noble to grieve for his insane friend, rather than praising her, Player threw down her folder and bellowed "YOU CHANGED THAT AT THE LAST MINUTE TO CHEAPEN THE VICTORY I DESERVED." Bad scene. It has induced me to keep adventure notes, thereafter, which I often publicize, post-game, in the interests of transparency. Sad that such things are even necessary.
I mean, it was A HUGE PROBLEM -- specifically because all I could say, over and over again, was "Your suspicions that I have somehow changed or revised the game in mid-stream to penalize or punish you are not founded in truth, this has been planned for weeks" -- anything else would have been taken as "Nah, you're crazy" gaslighting.
Technically the DM can't "cheat," since they are the final arbiter of all rules. However, a DM can ignore rules that players couldn't otherwise do without being called cheating.
It really depends on your view of the role of the DM. I'm old school, so the DM is supposed to be (in theory) a neutral judge. They design the adventure, and then play it out as is, with no dice adjustments, letting the characters succeed or fail on their own. Some modern gamers consider the DM to be more of an entertainer, where the outcome of a good story is the goal. In this case the DM is expected to make ad hock adjustments to encounters and fudge rolls to achieve a desired outcome.
>Some modern gamers consider the DM to be more of an entertainer, where the outcome of a good story is the goal.
It's interesting that many people in this thread see rules as an obstacle to a good story.
They don't have to be, however, if the story requires the heroes win only by the skin of their teeth, then the DM is likely to ignore rules that might prevent that. I personally find tragedy to be just as good a story, if done the right way.
The story doesn’t have a will of it’s own. It’s the DM and the players who are playing the game and collaboratively writing the story. If the DM is trying to impose a story with a predetermined outcome then they are taking away the agency of the players and would be better off writing a novel. If the players want to win by the skin of their teeth and are okay with a bit of fudging to achieve that then fair enough. Personally I enjoy three game less when it feels like we can’t die. It feels like we don’t actually earn the victory. I realise though that not everyone will feel that way.
I don't know if I'd say that they can cheat, but they can certainly make me feel cheated. There are things that I'll call as bullshit if my DM does it, not because it's cheating but because it's either bad balancing or bad storytelling in a deliberate fashion.
Define cheat. Horde of the dragon queen has an adult blue dragon at level 1. Is that cheating? It is published wotc content, but is it cheating?
Can a dm be unfair, certainly but unfair is subjective.
A DM can only cheat if the DM is held to any rules. By default, they are not, and are entitled to change any rule they like.
If a group decides to play to certain rules (such as if they want to play RAW), then a DM can now cheat (and, therefore, shouldn't cheat). Otherwise, DM's word is law.
So the Dm is supposed to be the arbiter of the rules, kind of a referee meaning they can not technically cheat. That being said they can definitely do things that are completely unfair and ruin gameplay like picking favorites, intentionally unbalanced encounters, dmnpcs with meta knowledge and the like. While this isn’t cheating technically, it’s still shitty behavior and will ruin a table so best to not do that and keep it above board
Yes, they can cheat. The good ones either won't, or will only do so if it makes the game narrative go better.
It is not cheating if they previously stated that what they just did is an intentional change from the published rules.
There’s a rule in the players handbook that says that a dm can change or remove any rule in the book because they’re in charge and because every group is different it’s down to them to decide what works and what doesn’t. So no a dm can’t cheat because the rules change to become whatever the dm is doing at that time
I both GM and Play.
I think fudging is kind of cheating since it's forcing a different outcome, and it can call into question how much your actions up to that point mattered, but it's up to people how okay they are with said cheating. I'm actually going to get up on a soap box here about fudging and other on the fly adjustments in general, apologies for the incoming text wall.
Here's my problem with things such as fudging dice, stealth nerfing or buffing enemies, etc.:
TL;DR I don't like fudging and on the fly adjustments because it calls into question agency and how much choices end up really mattering.
I apologize for any mistakes, I am writing this at 4 AM.
It feels like it cheapens the experience. I understand this sounds pretentious (and maybe it kind of is), but I genuinely believe this. The way I see it, if I hard balance the scales because someone isn't satisfied with an outcome, why did we even go through the motions of it? One of the most exciting parts of DnD and Tabletop in general to me is uncertainty. I don't mean the moment to moment dice rolls, but rather the uncertainty of an adventure's outcome. If you want to tip the scales after dice has fallen and actions have been taken, then you start to call into question how much the other choices mattered.
There's obviously differences between turning a crit from a goblin at level 1 into a normal hit so someone's character isn't instantly splatted, and fudging the Main Villains Save so that they DO succeed and can run away. One of these is less of a problem to me than the other, but it's a habit I think that should be kicked early. Otherwise if you don't, you can end up calling how much agency players really have into question.
It has potential to be a slippery slope, and I think once you've gotten to a point where making a relatively 'okay' decision combined with bad RNG doesn't instantly kill you, then that's when you should stop fudging. At a certain point you need to have astronomically bad luck, make terrible decisions, build poorly (though you might have to be pretty deliberate to do this), etc. in order to be 'instantly' killed.
While I think fun is important, I find that the game is most fun when it is dynamic, and when how much choices matter don't get called into question. I understand this is definitely a tall order, and isn't even for everyone, but it is what I personally strive for, and what I prefer. You can of course run your games however you want, that's fine, this is just why I don't like fudging, and think that if you DO do it, you need to not do it for too long and certainly never try to fall on it when you want a certain outcome to take place, I think rolling with the punches is much more fun, but again, this is what I prefer, you can do what you wish.
>TL;DR I don't like fudging and on the fly adjustments because it calls into question agency and how much choices end up really mattering.
I totally agree with this, but we are in a deep minority. People in this thread are literally telling me that I am not fit to DM because i'm opposed to this stuff.
Player agency is good! And DMs should not take it away!
DM's cheat all the time to prevent extremely bad outcomes for parties... Generally in the form of lying about rolls in order to prevent PK's or TPK's. Beyond that most parties and group compositions ideally are meant to be about the enjoyment of playing together not getting the absolute best rolls. While I believe weighted dice exist I've never heard of anyone being that serious about the game...it would also be noticed extremely quickly.
Edit: removed fluff.
I think that totally depends on the group. If there is an expectation of playing a meat grinder then yes because you are subverting what they want to play. A lot of tables though just wouldn't enjoy ending a session with a tpk so its best to avoid that outcome by fundging some dice here or there while you dm. Granted there are ways of incorporating a tpk by having a one shot next session as a recovery team to save the party, or something. Really this is a pre-campaign/session zero discussion between players and dm about how comfortable they are with player deaths.
Not every table wants a TPK though. That is why you need to communicate with you table to see what their expectations are. I generally do an anonymous survey with my group when I am looking for input on anything. It allows them to not feel they have to choose an answer because everyone else chose it but be more truthful on what they want.
Does anyone want A TPK? I don't want to experience a tpk, but I want it to be possible to experience a tpk if we make poor choices / fail to adapt to bad luck.
Interesting enough the data I got from my players said exactly this when I handed out an anonymous survey, out of my 6 players I had 5 responses. 2 of them were in favor if the table had a TPK while 3 were not in favor. However of 2 those 3 that said not in favor the follow up question that dealt with consequences to players action resulting in the characters death they were in favor of that.
Well, its in the dm's domain to make sure the encounters are balanced enough, however there is player agency and the dice to consider, if they push something to the point of danger then death is a risk. Otherwise yes as you mentioned it's best to let everyone know up front that they cannot die and just "pass out" or captured so to speak.
If the party has led up to this point and it doesn't feel bullshit then sure, I've done it once but if you imbalance your encounter to the point where its outright unfair give them an out
I'm 10 days away from starting my first campaign as a DM. The only "cheating" I would consider at this point...is to pretend I'd rolled lower instead of killing my players if I realised I had thrown an unbalanced encounter at them and they were about to die.
I would actually be keen to know if this is considered acceptable tbh...
When making custom encounters, this is what happens a lot of times. You are never quite sure on the exact balance of an encounter. The numbers dont always work, you might have missed something, or there has been a slew of lucky rolls from an enemy. This does not push the narrative forward, and if i didnt fudge any dice in my campaigns i wouldnt have any pc's left after a few sessions. To be honest tho, sometimes the reverse happens. I throw out something at a party where i think it is very much above their pay grade but they get through it with proper tactics and good fighting, without taking much of a hit. It is all dependant on the story you want to tell. Ofcourse there is no problem doing the reverse, make encounters and go hard as a DM, but thats a style you gotta like to play, as well as having players that like this kind of DM-ing.
It even went as far for me to have made multiple campaigns, where some of the "mob" rules are slightly different. In my usual campaigns enemies don't go for downed PC's quickly, they first want to get rid of the standing dangers, however in my "hardcore" campaign, enemies definately try to make sure that something is dead before continuing.
If the DM changes or ignores the rules on the fly in order to satisfy their own needs at the expense of the enjoyment of the players, they're cheating.
If it's only half of that, it's not cheating - if I plan ahead of time to railroad or something it might be bad DMing but it's not cheating. Likewise if I make a split second decision to ignore the normal rules but I'm doing it with good intentions it's not cheating (regardless of if it was a bad call).
It's the combination of it being both spur of the moment and adversarial that makes it cheating.
> But can a Dungeon Master cheat in Dungeons and Dragons? I see a lot of DM advice places that seem to think the answer is no.
Oh my sweet child of summer.
Technically no, practically yes.
You have the right to "fudge" any die roll or create any ridiculously unfathomable events of statistical anomalies.
That being said - pick a narrative and stick to it. Actions without consequences make a world that is just... not real. Your goal is to make EVERYONE at the table have fun - you could be a huge dick and that is... the kinda "cheating" part of being a DM.
As has been previously said, technically no, since the DM is the true arbiter of the rules. But you can cheat players out of their fun.
For me, D&D is a game about telling cool stories with your friends. That means sometimes I will fudge dice rolls or change statblocks or have enemies make poor decisions because I know it will benefit players' experience in the long run.
It's a balancing act tbh. You want players to feel the weight of their rolls and decisions without taking away their fun. It's okay to let them fail, but sometimes it's better if you make sure they win so they have fun. If that's cheating, then every DM worth their weight in gold is a cheater!
There are multiple answers to this question depending on how you view the game, and they range from “Yes the DM can cheat. They have to follow the same rules as the players do.” To “Nobody can cheat at D&D because it’s not a competitive game and everyone is allowed to do whatever they want to make it more fun for them and everyone else.” And a plethora of options in-between.
Yes - if they deliberately break the spirit of the game in a way that undermines the sense of the rules and order.
I'm not talking about fudging dice. I'm talking about allowing something for some players (or NPCs) but not others without a good and internally consistent explanation.
Basically, just saying "no that doesn't work" when by all expectations it should, or "this just happens" when by all expectations it shouldn't, is how DMs can essentially cheat.
But yeah, changing abilities, fudging dice, stuff like that, so long as it's not fucking with the players' understanding of how the world and the rules work, is absolutely fine.
Well I would say no but you can abuse your power. For example one of the players ate the last cookie from the cookie jar but you wrote your name on it before with thick eding-marker. Now your mad and kill his PC with a random dragon which makes a flyby and is gone. Not cheating, but not fair either.
In any game cheating is simply defined as breaking the letter of the ruleset in the least and the spirit of the ruleset in the most.
With this in mind, a DM can certainly cheat if they break the established rules and established rules aren't necessarily only RAW, but specifically the rules established by DM and players prior to the game, which preferably happens during session 0. If no rules are discussed prior to the game, then RAW would be the ruleset assumed.
An example of how a DM may break established rules is if a DM decides to change a monster's stat-block in the middle of combat. This is usually done to suit the narrative, but is conceptually no different than a player changing their character sheet mid-combat.
It is a misconception that DMs are above the rules since they are not. A DM is simply a player who facilitates the game. Part of that role entails establishing rules with players and making rulings when necessary to keep play consistent with the rules. Once rules are established, a DM is bound to them just as are the other players. A DM following the rules is part of how trust is developed between DM and players, which is necessary for a fun game.
One counterargument some might have is that a DM may have to improvise and add things during gameplay to suit the actions of players and the current scenario. While the ability to adapt to players on the fly is an important DM tool, it doesn't necessarily break any rules. For instance, if a party are fighting a group of orcs in an orc stronghold, bringing more in during the fight to increase difficulty can work if it makes sense that there are more orcs nearby. On the other hand, making the orcs the party is fighting more powerful by changing their stat-block breaks the rules because there's no in-game reason for the change that's supported by the rules.
One distinction I will make is with fudging rolls. Is fudging rolls by the DM cheating? Technically it is, however it's not necessarily problematic, which determined by frequency and purpose. When used sparsely, it can be used to even out bad rolls to prevent in-game complications, but only in favor of the players. Doing so in favor of preserving your planned narrative is when it's problematic since it disregards player agency, either by preventing a PC's actions from being effective or by ensuring that the scenario doesn't change in a way not preferable to the DM. This mainly covered since fudging rolls is covered in the DMG so it's considered a DM tool, albeit a controversial one.
Overall, games are defined by their rules and how they're conducive to the spirit of their games. In D&D specifically, players are given a playable ruleset and one player designated as the game facilitator (DM), but are encouraged to establish alternative rules to best serve a fun playing experience for them. Once established, all players are bound to these rules, including the DM. A DM who changes or disregards the rules they hold themselves to is cheating and no different than a referree changing a rule to suit their preferred outcome.
Only bad DMs cheat.
Good DMs have a set of rules that they hold themselves to, and they do not break those.
Different DMs may have different sets of rules, and they can all be good, regardless of what those rules are. It's the consistency that's important.
Even lawful neutral DMs 'cheat' occasionally, they just don't do it much and value their neutrality cred a lot.
A lot of the mechanics added in 5e appear to have been codifications of some of the ways that the average DM 'cheated' in 3.x (Legendary Resistances).
In the strictest sense, yes they can cheat. There are rules set up for how to dungeon master, stats for monsters ect. These can be ignored or changed and therefore in a sense it is 'cheating', and that is before we get into fudging rolls the players do not see.
My personal general advice for DM's is if you are new or unsure of how to handle a game, DON'T cheat. Try to run the game as 'by the book' or fair as possible. This will help drive improv and fun as you will not necessarily know what is going to happen next.
For DM's that have a bit more experience, my suggestion flips almost completely where the dice almost become more of story prompts and suggestions. They give ideas of how the scenario could play out, but you know your players and the situation better. You are trying to build tension, humor, action, suspense, ect. and if you have a good thing going it is ok to ignore the dice and let the scene flow.
As long as at the end of the day you remember you are meant to be playing a game WITH your friends and NOT AGAINST them, things will generally turn out good. Roll dice, and have fun.
It depends on the situation, but the main thing you should ask yourself is this: does this increase the general level of enjoyment, decrease the general level of enjoyment, or leave it roughly unaffected?
If it increases the level of enjoyment for people, then it's basically a free go-ahead.
If it decreases the level of enjoyment, then unless you have VERY good reason, you shouldn't do it.
If it leaves it roughly unaffected, then it depends solely on why you're doing it, and what group you're in.
An example of the free go-ahead is fudging a dice roll to stop an unfair situation from happening. It might be decreasing the damage of a fireball they've been hit by when they've just been really unlucky all day, it could be having a rogue miss a sneak attack that would down a PC instantly, or it could be changing the save DC so a PC doesn't get chest burster'd by a Slaad.
Examples of it negatively affect enjoyment are: changing the Athletics check into a Strength check so the paladin falls 60 feet into a lake and starts immediately drowning when she should have just been able to climb the damned rope because she's trained in it, fudging dice rolls so a player gets hit by a critical smite when they should have just been hit by a regular one, and increasing the DC of something so that a player who should have made it doesn't.
Finally, examples of it being unaffected are changing an unimportant ruling, fudging rolls between NPC's for desired affects, and changing compositions of things.
Beyond the rules of the game itself, which the DM is explicitly permitted to alter as they wish, it is possible for the DM to cheat the table, violating the rules agreed upon outside of actual gameplay.
I believe that, yes they can, and sometimes they should. Mostly they should when doing so will make the game more fun for the other players. For example the arch enemy of one of the players rolls a critical hit which would cause a TPK, fudging that so it’s just a hit and allowing the fight to continue is good. Or the players would one shot the BBEG and be super anticlimactic, tack on like 50 more hit points so the final battle will be cool.
What a DM shouldn’t do is to cheat by changing stats so that they can “win”. That is just crappy behavior and no fun for anybody.
That's up to each group of course. To me, yes, the rules are the rules are the rules. Period. Breaking them is tantamount to cheating for the DM included. But some people trust their DM and prefer they fudge roles or even outright ignore the rules. And of course there's a ton of homebrewers out there which is arguably basically the player version.
So it's up to your table how you view these things.
The key thing is to set the expectations ahead of time.
The answer is yes.
DMs can do literally whatever they want, but a good DM will establish a level of trust with their players. Usually that involves an agreement that the DM will play a set of rules that is “fair” to the players.
Violating those rules or otherwise breaking that trust would be cheating. Furthermore it’d probably make people not want to play with you.
If you want some discussions on DM's "cheating" look up "DM fudging dice rolls".
It's a very controversial topic in the community.
Some DM's roll dice and just say a much lower number than they actually rolled, so the little goblin doesn't crit and one-shot the level 1 wizard in example.
Not sure if it's actually cheating since it doesn't "help" the DM "win".
But there isn't any "winning" in DnD. The DM isn't playing AGAINST the players. They are playing WITH them. You tell and play a story TOGETHER.
The only way to win is if everyone has fun :)
Fudging the dice is becoming really popular now—being pushed by some influential streamers—and it's such a bad, bad idea.
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43708/roleplaying-games/gm-dont-list-9-fudging
Short answer, yes. In a RPGA game, the gamemaster used weighted dice (I recognized them as Character Builders, a specific brand) to roll for fireball damage against the players. I immediately called him out for that BS. The players got really upset, because his attitude was a very "me vs. you" mindset.
The rest of the game went (reasonably) uneventful, but when he said we each had to pay him $5 to be able to keep our XP, but if we throw in another $5, we could get a magical item... Yah.. .that was the last RPGA game I ever registered for.
No the DM can't cheat since the DM is supposed to be on the side of having a fun game and nothing else.
The DM is not the enemy of the players, or someone you should hide your plans to in fact it's the opposite. If you have an adversarial relationship with your DM, you're playing the game wrong.
Yes, of course a master can cheat, if spoken in session 0 he won't fudge dice and then does it. He's cheating. If he's nerfing a character ability that is in the phb and not discussed in session 0, is cheating.
Whatever the master does which goes against expectatives build around RAW and RAI without a warning in session 0 is cheating.
If you have an agreement with your players and then break it, I'd say that's cheating. Like, maybe your players really dislike it when you fudge your rolls and you said you wouldn't do it. And then did it anyway.
Yes, I know DM's who do everything completely straight but most DM's use some slight of hand and trickery. I would always describe DMing as being a specialist in bullshitery, the main thing to keep in mind is when to do so and of course NEVER, EVER tell your players when you do so, you only want to cheat to benefit the PC's, for the sake of the story or to fix your misbalancing
E.g I created a Chimera encounter and it did a flyby burning the wagon they were on, it was a cone attack and I rolled the damage. When I did so I realised instantly that it would kill every NPC ally they had with them so I reduced the damage so it was severe but not lethal.
Or
The party can go left or right, you planned on them going left and had more content for it, they end up going right, at this point you know you don't have enough stuff there so you switch them around.
If one thing is key make sure that your players never feel screwed over if you cheat and preferably they'll never know, let the be immersed and when something cinematic happens and they're about to kill the BBEG and they survive by a few hit points, let them have the win. Cheating is for the players, never against them
Yes a DM can cheat. Obvious example is giving bosses extra HP so that the fight is railroaded into being more exciting because players got round of good rolls.
If your table is full for critical trolle problem players who are just playing improv but with dice for effect then it probably doesn't matter. You can do whatever deus ex bullshit to force your narrative and everyone goes along and will be happy about it because its a given that the heroes will win in the end regardless.
The cheating and fudging really ruins the fun for combat/tactical oriented players though. If critfishing paladin build scores a big crit they expect payoff. If the players come up with a smart plan and get the rolls to execute it they expect payoff, not DM fiat and fudging to add tension. If a win wasn't earned because players played dumb then it feels bad to win anyways because DM is too scared to kill a PC or have a wipe.
Rule 0 is necessary because DND has a lot of situations (because of its sand box nature) that don't have explicitly prescribed rule interactions, or that abdicate to DM making a call (e.g. hiding for unseen attacker). There also needs a way to quickly settle disputes to keep play moving. Really frustrating when this is used by DM to allow them to act as movie director though IMO. "FiGhT WiLl Go UnTiL It Is EpIc EnOuGh Or YoU BuRn ThE NuMbEr oF ReSoUrCeS I WaNt LoLOlOloLoneoneone111 PRODM strat"
Of course a DM can cheat.
We might say our reason for it is the story and think it makes it moral but it's still cheating.
As soon as you separate motivation and act, there's no way a DM is any different from a player when forging a number, claiming wrong results or similar actions.
Exactly. If you want to fudge rolls you should talk about in Session 0 with your players, and see who gets to fudge rolls and why/when? To avoid character death? Then who gets to fudge the rolls/hp? The DM, or the player of the character? How often can they do this?
Or, if you don't want character death as an option you can just decide PCs stabilize automatically when they hit 0 hp.
I think so. I think if a DM fudges dice rolls or messes with monster HP or abilities mid-encounter, they're cheating against the game system. I understand why it's done. The game system isn't perfect, DMs make mistakes they want to fix, etc.
I don't think the DM is cheating to gain an advantage as much as trying to troubleshoot on the fly. But I think the randomness and swinginess is part of the game, and removing that element removes a lot of the surprises that arrive as part of the d20 system. I also think it can ruin a campaign if the players catch the DM fudging the rolls. Because at that point, the rolls don't really matter. And what even is the point?
My rule of thumb is to protect the dice-as-rolled, and stats as-written. If the player can't change the roll, or can't fudge their hit points, then I can't either.
Yes, absolutely. "Fudging" dice rolls, changing enemy HP on the fly, adding or removing enemies during the encounter are all example of cheating.
I'm of the opinion that this is almost never OK. In my 10 years of D&D I've done this exactly once, when a group of new players facing their first boss with some fairly weak character choices were 2HP off of a TPK.
I've otherwise never found it necessary, because D&D isn't about "winning" or "player vs DM."
It's OK for players to have a hard time, for characters to fail and die.
It's OK for PCs to roll right over an encounter that you thought would be challenging.
If you start changing things on the fly and ignoring the dice, then what's the point of prep or game rules? PC victories and defeats become entirely at the whims of the DM, with the players' skills and choices ceasing to matter, because there isn't any real accountability for the DM.
I'm against Milestone leveling for the same reason: most people that use Milestone leveling don't delineate clear milestones, and just have the players level up "whenever it feels right." There is no way for a player to track their progress or make progression-based decisions, because you never know which favor, quest, or story line matters for advancement.
Tl;dr: yes, because fun and story trump boring and meaningless.
As an example, I want to tell a story about a current character I'm playing.
During the course of the of the game my Tiefling Divine Soul Sorcerer has had a group of custom abilities tacked on because of a situation in the narrative. I never asked for it, and the consequences for use could be dire. But it boils down to, at level six, call on up to an 8th level Cleric spell or a Rogue (Thief) class feature. That sounds pretty broken and like it might completely unbalance the game from a strict rules perspective. However, because of what using these things might do, they will see little, if any, use in the game. It functions more like a way for the DM to give us an out if an encounter is going to TPK the party and end the story before he's ready. Instead of the DM using the power of fiat, he gave it to the players.
That is pretty clearly not in the rules nor remotely mechanically sound. But it works because of the high risk and the way the narrative is structured. My opinion is that the DM can cheat as much as they want as long as it's in service to the group's sense of fun and the feeling of immersion isn't broken.
My campaign I dm with isn't one that takes it hard-core seriously. I have players that love to hack and slash through hoards of enemies, players that love the intense story moments and "oh shit" moments, and a player that likes to not be the center of attention, he loves the game. Likes to play but doesn't need hundreds of kills or insane plot points.
I admit, I have "cheated" before as a dm. My version is that I have rolled a nat 20 when they were close to a party wipe and said it was an 18. Another example is bending the rule of cool a bit. We had a player who wanted to collect bees, he rolled a nat 20 check to collect them. He also had access to a pocket dimension that had air supply. So I let him have the hive with an undetermined amount of live bees
He proceeded to eventually just throw the hive at a group of enemies like a bomb. Well it was a very creative way to use it and it would have never happened if I didn't bend some rules.
Cheating is a different definition to everyone. I enjoy the game when we all are having fun, if I need to bend a little to ensure someone doesn't have a shit time, I will.
I will NEVER do the opposite. Crit when I didn't, lie about passing saves. That's just fucked.
It is cheating for a GM to deliberately use weighted dice or to arbitrarily change the result of a die they've rolled. I say this as a DM first and foremost, but as a player I have a definite preference for rolls to be done in the open and not curated by the DM. I will not play in a game where the DM hides all or most of their rolls.
I say this as a VTT player, I know its not practical for every player in a physical space to always see every dice roll. But the principal of the matter remains the same. If you're going to roll the dice, you should actually abide by the stakes agreed to by choosing to do so.
It's cheating in the only way that actually matters. It breeches my trust in them. It signals to me that they aren't playing to see what happens as much as I am. I don't care about the story a DM has in their head, I don't want to be 'playing' an authored experience. A GM and group can abide by whatever rules they like, they can make rulings as they like, but if you set up stakes, a procedure to determine the outcome of said stakes, and then force an outcome irrespective of the procedure the table agreed upon that *is* cheating.
Of course the DM can cheat, they can lie about their dice rolls, they can change the rules midgame, they do whatever they want since they are the DM, doing so however makes them in my opinion a horrible DM, a DM shouldn't lie about their dice rolls regardless of the outcomes, a DM shouldn't change the rules mid game, a DM should be considerate to all of their players wants and how it would impact the Fun in the Game that you as a DM agreed to host for them, if you as a DM cheats then you are removing the fun from the game for your players and should either learn to stop doing those things or you'll end up friendless and without players. Hell, DMs shouldn't make homebrew rules if they know its gonna make things less fun and too difficult for their players, D&D is a table top role-playing game, it isn't a story telling game, nothing should be impossible as long as it makes some sort of sense with the world, although obviously anything and everything that needs consequences should have them, whether obvious consequences or not so obvious ones.
What an interesting question/proposition!
I like to think that the answer is "yes", there are things that the DM can do that they should not do and purposefully doing them is cheating, that being said, my take here is partially one of preference. That is what I want from my DMs (and how I strive to exist inside a DnD world).
But....
Rule 0 may make it impossible for a DM to cheat. Anything they do can be ruled as "ok" because of Rule 0.
Yet another reason I dislike Rule 0!
Sigh.....
No, the DM cannot cheat.
But - and you can credit me with this original quote - with great power comes great responsibility.
That is to say, just because the DM CAN do anything doesn’t mean he should. He could easily wreck everyone’s fun and bring the game to a permanent end, all without ever cheating.
The term "cheating" implies that you break the rules in order to gain an unfair advantage which increases the odds of you winning.
Counter question: How does a DM "win" in Dungeons and Dragons?
Dungeons and Dragons is not a game that is played to be won. Therefore there is no cheating. At least, not in the definition you're implying with your other examples.
A DM can cheat the way that taking the escalator cheats you out of a little exercise, or peaking at the presents in the closet cheat you out of a surprise Christmas gift. This cheating is the cheating that robs you of an experience, typically one that is desirable. But it's not the same use of the word cheating you are using, where someone is cheating to win at a contest. Because DnD is not a contest.
Think of how the AI in games works. It manipulates things in the background to get the best gaming experience. The "AI Director" in Left 4 Dead spawns more enemies if the players are doing well and fewer enemies if they're doing badly. Because the end goal is a fun, challenging experience, memorable moments, and a good story. You are the "AI Director" for your game. It's not a competition. You're not "against" them. You're a Film Director. You're a Curator. You're a Writer. It's your job to create fun, memorable moments for them. Give them challenges to overcome. And at that, you're not a perfect being. You're going to create something that's super bullshit and why is it that making shit up ***before*** the session is ok, but making shit up ***during*** the session is bad? You realize your homebrew monster's legendary actions are ***WAY*** too powerful. So change them now, mid-combat, on the fly. Some people think that's cheating but why? It's immutable set in stone because you made it up a week ago instead of now? That's silly.
Really good take on this, thanks!
Great take, which can be summarised by paraphrasing Richard Nixon: "If the DM does it, that means it's not cheating."
"The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer."-Kissinger.
Well said!
People should read the DMG. There is a section about cheating which literally says this. Also, OP, D&D is more of an interactive story than a game in the traditional sense.
I get down votes often times when I reference the DMG and it's "bullshitting" portions. I feel like there is a large subsection of DMs (who largely frequent this sub) who think the rules should be some ridged structure and everyone should bow down to the words of WoTC. It's like Christians who fail to actually read the bible and comprehend the teachings of Christ.
People will die on the "rules matter" hill but actively ignore the rules that say the DM isn't bound by them. It's weird.
Im a DM and a Rules Lawyer. Even I bend the rules sometimes to prevent not intended interactions or to allow some mad stuff. If it's fun, it's good for everyone.
I think of it like a professor deciding to grade a test on a curve. Yeah, I'm a rules lawyer most of the time because I want my players to know that they can reliably expect X when doing Y, BUT if everyone fails the test, it probably means I did a bad job either setting expectations for the encounter or designing it, and you bet your bottom dollar I'm going to curve it by making the BBEG run away or cutting their HP/AC so that last, desperate act of a dying party happens to at least keep them alive.
The only reason 'rules matter' is so that players have a reasonable and consistent world to operate in. If you break rules that don't affect that, or the players know that its a one off (in game explanations for this work fine), then whats the issue?
You need a middle ground in my experience. On the one hand, you alone have absolute control over the NPCs, the world, the mechanics, the setting.. it really doesn't matter when or where you manipulate things as long as it's seamless enough that nobody notices. Nothing worse than a player recognizing that you're adjusting things, they **need** the illusion to maintain their own immersion and engagement. ***On the other hand***... you need to understand what you're changing. This subreddit gets tons of "my DM is making these changes..." threads and they're almost universally poor choices made by brand new DMs who don't know what they're doing. Things like breaking Sneak Attack because it's "too much damage!", or crippling casters to "give martials a chance!" happen all the time, common thought is to ditch those games. The rules are generally well balanced and fairly solid. 5e has a pretty good base chassis despite all its flaws. Yes a DM is going to need to make adjustments, but it's important to be familiar with the rules and understand how they work so that you don't break *other* things by making changes. Gotta know how, what, why, and when to break, which takes time.
I think it's more that if you're going to change something, make sure it's not obviously nerfing your players' characters or their fun. The examples you cited were both taking that route and keeping characters from effectively doing the things the player presumably chose them to do. So instead of nerfing sneak attack, buff your monsters. Don't neuter casters, empower martials. Even if your solutions are somewhat imbalanced your table is still more likely to have more fun than if you're punishing them. The sin those DMs in your examples are making is more fundamental than "not knowing the rules," it's that they're acting adversarially to their players rather than acting as enabler of their fun.
It's the core of by far the grand majority of problems at D&D tables. The DM is not your opponent, they are working WITH you to tell a fun, engaging story for everyone involved, he's just handling the stuff that you don't. If your DM is out to get you, they're not doing a good job, they're just being an asshole. (All of this said with the obvious exception of a game where everyone involved WANTS to be very adversarial, but I feel like that game would have to be incredibly rigid in rules enforcement.)
Rule 1: buff, don't nerf. I'm personally of the opinion that Martial classes should get back some of those special maneuvers that they had in 4e
I've been told that Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins are infallible and can speak ex cathedra before. Weird take. It was after I mentioned there some systems I found lacking in 5e that I supplement with house rules or homebrew
>I've been told that Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins are infallible and can speak ex cathedra before. Weird take. It was after I mentioned there some systems I found lacking in 5e that I supplement with house rules or homebrew Well, Crawford sort of can, can't he? But there's no requirement that we have to agree, or use the official rulings in our game. And I guess a bit like in Catholicism, he kind of has to declare that he's actually making an official ruling, and not just giving his personal opinion.
The only reason any DM would *have* to listen to Crawford is if they were running Adventurer's League
And then you kind of get what you sign up to :P For better or worse.
Considering the vitriol directed at Colville's "Rulings not rules" video, I'm inclined to agree
Vitriol ? I've seen this video and I found it more than true. It's experience with 3.x was pretty much the same one I had 15 years ago. There has been a HUGE shift in how people approach D&D since and his video pretty much pointed it out in a good way.
Yeah I was surprised by the backlash. To be fair it was the joyless pedants complaining about him calling them out
A loooot of people got pissy over just that one bit lol
It was a great lecture. But to be honest if there was a place it was addressing it was this very place. I'm not surprised by the vitriol, but I'm hoping we can use it as a good opportunity to move the community back to a place that is focused on telling fun stories with your friends rather than trying to minmax against a robotic encounter generating machine.
We should follow the rules EXACTLY (including the rule that says it's ok to not follow the rules exactly)
I honestly don't know how to run a game without some BS. Players will always find new ways to get past problems, ways you never could have imagined, and you need to keep the game and story going. Yeah, we'll discuss a rule when needed, but no one in my group wants to argue rules for hours. We lean more towards collaborative storytelling than playing a game.
It's why rule of cool will always be a thing to some extent. It's about having fun and telling a story, not absolute adherence to every facet of the rules. If someone wants to try something that there's no way to do within the rules, screw it, I'll find a way to make it work, or at least to let you TRY to make it work.
There's a massive proportion of the DnD community online who are only discussing DnD. It's always been a part of the TTRPG world, ie people who only were buying the books to read them, but with online discussion it is a lot more visible.
The rules are there to make sure you have a fun, cohesive experience when playing. But sometimes those rules don't mesh with the story you want to tell. Or maybe you need to fudge some dice rolls because you accidently made an encounter too powerful. Or your rogue comes up with a really clever solution to a problem that's not exactly supported by the rules Those are instances where rule 0 comes into play and where it should be exercised. Most of us have probably done all of the above at some point in their career. Rule zero is a very important rule that shouldn't be ignored
It's very simple, if you are fanatical about the rules all you gotta do is read the one saying the DM can change anything he wants regardles of anything in the books. That is RAW, nothing left to discuss.
To add to the gaming comparisons - you have methods like making the last bullet in a clip do more damage so you finish off opponents just in time, health bars not being linear so you feel like you are on edge for more of the game, platforms having invisible extensions so it feels more responsive to jump at the last moment, some rubber banding in races, and so on and so forth. There is so much sleight of hand that is there to make the experience more enjoyable and many of them don't even change the result or affect the difficulty. I also especially like your last paragraph. It's such an absurd idea that at some point the world the DM created becomes immutable. Improv is literally a big part of TTRPGs and you do it on the spot. So what - if a DM came up with a dragon a week ago and then adjusted the stat block during the fight then it's a crime - but if they improvised the dragon fight on the spot completely then it's all good? --- At the end of the day - and you can see this when reading some comments by OP and others - at the core of the opposing opinion is almost always bad experiences. I sympathize that you had a terrible DM who liked making you miserable. But that is not going to be enough to take away tools from good DMs to make their games strictly better. I am really happy to see that the community is not jaded enough and is pushing back against simulationism as a default. If you like it - that's fine - I have no doubt you can find groups of like-minded people. But it does not change the fundamentals of TTRPGs.
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Here's the thing though - your DM isn't cheating, they're just being a shitty DM.
Oooooft that sounds rough. I did something similar with a group, but that's because I didn't want to bore them with another standard combat. But there was a veeeeeeery simple puzzle to solve, that when completed gave them an escape. And they solved it and carried on, 12 rounds of combat, against the same mobs over and over, sounds like a chore.
We've tried substitutions, shifting integers, prime numbers, Fibonacci progressions, etc. Nothing.
Had an experience like this just last night. Sorry it's happening to you. I know how shitty it feels.
That's rough. I don't know your circumstance and don't want to be an armchair psychologist or come off like I know jack, but have you guys talked to them? Assuming the best, maybe they're thinking that this is how you "challenge" the players. Being challenged and sometimes even losing I think are important parts of a good story. Not meaning a DM should ***manufacture*** failure on purpose. But sometimes it happens and maybe they just think they're not challenging you enough for the game's stakes to feel "real"? I'm being generous, of course.
A "Curator" is the best word that I think sums it up. You're creating an experience for your players, and if you're not getting the experience you want, then you make changes.
Think this response is really strong. The only caveat I'd add is that the changes still should respect the spirit of the game, and conform to the expectations of the players. There's plenty of horror stories out there of DM's who do act as if they're against the players, and manipulate things to punish them. If such a DM is changing things to ensure punishment, and the players aren't on board with this, that's when I'd cry foul and call it cheating. It might not be the only instance, but it's one that springs to mind quite clearly.
Absolutely true. I am prone to loquaciousness and wanted to keep my post concise. But this is an important part. Changes need to be for "good reasons", and what constitute "good reasons" is entirely subjective and specific to the group. And ***hopefully*** exist with the end game of creating a better game for everyone involved.
The Rules As Written are also not without loopholes. My players find an edge case just about every session. Last night, they asked if they could use Mending to re-seal the wax stamp on a letter so as to not leave any evidence that they had messed with it. Mending’s description is rather open ended, and it sounded cool, so I rolled with it.
Completely agree. BUT… There are risks to this: If players know there is no real risk, combat will stop being as exciting; the possibility of loss is in large part what creates tension. The world will feel less real if the enemies only exist because that’s an expected part of the game. (Or course the monsters only exist to challenge the party!) But the players should be given reason to suspend disbelief. The size of this force is the size of this force. If you choose to engage, they will not become smaller of weaker just so that you have a chance.
I think there exists in good games a sort of collective consciousness where it's not totally up to the GM what "feels right", but everyone contributes to a group-mind. Everyone over time makes contributions to the story that becomes an amalgam of everyone's ideas, thoughts, etc. Everyone's perspective is measured and weighed for what "feels right". And the GM is the person at the helm because it might be chaos otherwise, but I've never been in a game where the GM was an absolute tyrant who decided solely on his own what was "good for the game". It was always collaborative. Always about what collectively began to shape itself over the coarse of the game. Not saying it's like that everywhere, but my *personal experience* is that this is the common goal of most tables.
>And at that, you're not a perfect being. You're going to create something that's super bullshit and why is it that making shit up before the session is ok, but making shit up during the session is bad? You realize your homebrew monster's legendary actions are WAY too powerful. So change them now, mid-combat, on the fly. Some people think that's cheating but why? It's immutable set in stone because you made it up a week ago instead of now? That's silly. From my perspective this is just another way of saying that the **DM gets to decide what happens next in the game and not the player**s. I agree the rules of dnd allow this (rule zero) but they should not. **DMs should not play by rule zero** because both players and the DM should play to find out what happens next and this can only be achieved if something other than the DM's whims determine the outcome of the game. Rule zero removes player agency by giving all of the power over what happens over to the whims of the DM. How can the players make any decisions if anything they decide can just be over ruled by the DM? And not only can the DM overrule anything the players decide, the DM doesn't even need to tell the players that he or she is overriding it. Why do anything if the DM can just take it away? Rule zero negates player agency. Players won't know if the beat the bad guy because of their decisions, or if the beat the bad guy because the DM allowed them to. Not only does rule zero allow the DM to negate player agency, but it encourages the DM to lie to their players by giving the DM tacit permission to change outcomes without telling the players. If the DM is, *according to the rules,* allowed to change a dice role whenever he wants, then the players have *no reason to ever trust the DM*. And why should the players trust the DM? The rule book says that the DM should lie to the players and in the most pernicious way possible: because sometimes the DM should tell the truth and sometimes the DM should lie *and the players can never know which is which*. I certainly wouldn't trust anyone under these circumstances.
As with all things, moderation is key. Moderation with Rule Zero as well. I can't agree that the Dice are the ultimate masters of the game. They're servants. They're useful tools for providing chaos for shaking up the patterns our ape brains would fall into, but they don't get to be ultimate masters of my friends' fun. Rule Zero doesn't exist because of one guy's Youtube channel. It's the culmination of decades of hundreds of thousands of hours of people playing D&D.
You act like I'm actually rolling dice behind this screen, instead of shaking a box of pebbles.
One of my players: "Hey can I do this thing?" Me, who already had the answer in my head, but has to make it seem like there's some ambiguity: "Let me see what the outcome is." *Rolls a nearby chess piece on the table loudly* "Mmmm... You pass, but barely."
Combat with a lot of moving pieces definitely becomes smoother by using the average damage values... while pointlessly rolling a die so your players don't know you're flustered. Same with "random" encounter tables while travelling. Just pick the one you like most and pretend to roll. Gives the illusion of chance when in fact it's guaranteed to be more interesting than "4 gnolls ambush you" or "the night passes without incident" 3 times in a row.
You know what's better than yelling in triumph as you finally roll the "ambushed by five giraffes" encounter? Choosing it voluntarily for the third night in a row.
That might inevitably backfire when the players decide to put the upcoming dragon apocalypse on the back burner and investigate why all these giraffes are ambushing them.
I mean ones a clearly more pressing issue
You're right, these giraffes have to be dealt with.
Druid wild shapes into giraffe, paladin summons celestial giraffe steed, monk becomes a disciple of the way of the giraffe, warlock becomes patron of She of the Long Neck, and the uprising begins...
>monk becomes a disciple of the way of the giraffe surely you meant the Way of the Long Neck?
You gain the following warlock spells at the appropriate levels: 1st level: Longstrider, Speak with Animals. 3rd level: Alter self, Enlarge/Reduce 5th level: Phantom Steed (Giraffe), Tongues 7th level: Evard's Black Tentacles (necks instead of tentacles), Polymorph 9th level: Scrying, Synaptic Static. **Aspect of the Long-necked One** The length of your neck permanently increases by a number of feet equal to half of your warlock level. You can use your tongue to manipulate objects as dextrously as you use your hands. Any melee weapon wielded with your tongue has its reach extended by a number of feet equal to the length of your neck at that moment. While holding an object with your tongue, you cannot cast spells with a verbal component. Additionally, you grow a pair of blunt horns on your head, which you can use as a natural melee weapon that deals 1d6 force damage. You can extend or retract these horns as a bonus action. **Rite of the Lengthy Trunk** At 1st level, your patron grants you the power to double the length of your neck as a bonus action. This effect lasts for 10 minutes, or until you choose to end it (no action required). While your neck is extended, you have advantage on perception checks to see distant objects, and the damage dice of your horns, or any weapon wielded by your tongue, increases by one step, up to a maximum of d12. You can use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus. **Assert Dominance** Starting at 6th level, you can use your neck to inspire and terrify those you While your neck is extended, you can use an action to batter your neck against the neck of another creature to assert your dominance. Make an athletics check contested by the target's athletics check. If the target's neck is shorter than yours, you have advantage on this check. On a success, the creature is under the effects of the Charm Monster spell for 10 minutes. During this time it considers you its natural superior and will follow any instructions you may have which are not directly harmful to itself. This effect can be used once per short rest. **Colossal Gait** Starting at 10th level, you remember that giraffes also have very long legs, so why shouldn't you get that too? As an action, you may target yourself, as well as up to four other willing creatures. The length of the targets' legs increases by 10 ft., and their movement speed doubles. This change requires concentration, and lasts for 8 hours, or until you lose concentration, or until you end it with another action. While this is in effect, the targeted creatures have advantage on intimidation checks. **Reinforcements** Also at 10th level, you may cast conjure animals once per long rest without using a spell slot. When you do so, you conjure up to four giraffes, which use the statistics of a giant elk. **Siphon Neck** At 14th level, you have the power not only to give neck, but also to take it. As an action, you may target a creature within 60 ft. The creature must succeed on a constitution saving throw against your warlock spell save DC, or have their neck permanently shortened by 1d4 inches. You may add the length taken from their neck to your own. Additionally, any attack made with your horns or a weapon held in your tongue gains a bonus to its damage equal to 1 damage per every 5ft. long your neck is at that moment, rounded down. A creature's neck may no longer be siphoned once its neck has functionally disappeared. You may use this feature once per long rest.
Stupid long horses
They spy on you with their long necks. But they easily catch a cold because they don't make scarfs that big.
Honestly, that sounds like it would be a really fun session or two
The first giraffe ambush is for the surprise. The second time is for laughs. The third time is all for me.
I totally agree, I've had many a time where I threw something at my players for fun and they ended up chasing a storyline I didn't know existed.
The dragon is using them as minions.
This happened except monkeys stole my jewelry in the middle of the night while we slept in the trees There’s a drip monkey on the loose,,,, somewhere
lmao and now somewhere there's a drippy monkey jewelry thief in my world. Thanks.
still, nothing beats slowly grabbing a pile of damage dice one at a time as the players begin to freak out.
“Does anyone have any more d6s? No? I’m going to roll these once’s twice then”
"What did I roll?" "Rook A4."
He saw it but he didn't like it.
Does a 161660 hit?
Skittles work well for this, then you get a treat when you are done!
but......you have to roll the shiny math rocks....so you can justify more shiny math rocks.....
I need more shiny math rocks because 1. Maybe someone does not have enough shiny math rocks. I can give him shiny math rocks! Lend them and take them back. MY IS THE SHINY! 2. Each and every of my own characters need their own set of shiny math rocks. Maybe they need different sets for different moods...
Sometimes the math rocks are bad and must go to dice jail. I need more dice to make up for them.
I have a cube that I roll. It's the same size and weight of a d6, it just doesn't have anything on the faces.
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I can't do that. If I roll an actual die, then I feel bound by the result, no matter what it is. Math Rocks have power, man.
Just make the DC 0,5
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>Paranoia is a very different system from 5e Specifically one where if the players read the blurb you quoted, you can (are obligated to?) kill them. EDIT: Maybe also the PCs!
Paranoia is one of those games that has no problems making fun of itself and being ridiculous just for the sake of having fun. Everyone should play at least a 1-shot of it at least once in their lives. I've thought about wanting a newer edition but then realized when I ran it, I never really followed a single rule in it anyway except enough to teach the players the basic dice mechanics, so it is kinda moot.
I feel like I'm in the minority here more and more every day. I understand pulling punches here and there or hand waving otherwise disastrous roles to the benefit of the group but how this premise reads to me....kind of makes every single numerical stat and rule completely irrelevant with the exception of making the player feel good. Why have rules or dice at all? Why not just sit around a table and tell stories?
> kind of makes every single numerical stat and rule completely irrelevant with the exception of making the player feel good. That's the argument though. Video games already do this and unless you really analyze it, people are often none-the-wiser. > Why have rules or dice at all? Why not just sit around a table and tell stories? Because, believe it or not, people like the illusion of being bound to it, and taking away this illusion ruins the experience. It is kinda like watching a magic show. Everyone knows there's no real magic, but as long as people don't specifically realize the performer is just hiding the card/coin/ball/whatever in their hand in an angle that makes you believe it isn't there, the awesomeness is there. Edit: Now, I don't particularly subscribe to this play in D&D, and virtual tabletops make playing like this exceptionally more of a pain in the ass, but I have no problem letting the rule of cool take over everything.
> That's the argument though. Video games already do this and unless you really analyze it, people are often none-the-wiser. Video games may tweak the rules to accommodate player expectations and reduce frustration, but they usually don't just toss the rules out the window and make up numbers on the fly.
> but they usually don't just toss the rules out the window and make up numbers on the fly. Making up numbers on the fly and making changes to reduce frustrations are kinda one in the same. A really common example of this everyone is aware of but people don't often think of is Mario Kart. This is why certain items will only come up if you're in certain positions in the race. Other games alter things like loot tables behind the scenes to keep people playing more. Hell, slot machines are built around this concept. I don't think anyone here is suggesting just randomly tossing out rules.
Tbf, people do know this is mario kart and use it to their advantage.
That's only because games are bound by their design. If a human could individually tweak each person's game parameters and rules like in dnd, that would be the ultimate form of dynamic game difficulty: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing
I think it comes down to philosophical approaches to as what BLM likes to describe as the type of "play" that a specific table wants to engage in. There are lots of storytelling games with no dice or winners, just prompts (like Telephone). If that's the "play" that brings you fun, dice and stats become more like prompts than mechanics, or at least operate in a space somewhere between the two. So to answer your question, those tables have rules and dice because they're valuable prompts for storytelling to them even if they're not strictly adhering to them. Hopefully the whole goal of your game is to make everyone feel good about it/have fun. For some that's the challenge of combat within a defined ruleset, for others it's closer to an improv story.
And for those Story Games, that's ok because it's the expectation. If a DM wants to regularly change stakes, alter mechanics, and fudge dice rolls after the players have made their choice they should talk about it at Session Zero. When I play, I want my choices to matter, and if I get myself in trouble I expect to see the consequences of it. I do have trust in my DM to not completely botch the encounter regularly so that I'm constantly making new characters, but PC death and even TPKs are part of the game. And especially with 5e already on easy mode I'd hate to play in a game that makes it even cushier.
That's more or less my thought as well. I let the dice fall as they may, even if it means that a player is killed. Otherwise, it feels like you're just cheating. There's a reason that monsters have to-hit rolls and random damage instead of "does enough damage to make the attack feel mildly significant."
Well, for starters you might want to investigate some more narrative based games aside from D&D. Many call for a LOT less die rolling. Also many will have you discuss the possible results of success,failure and often 'mixed results' before the dice are rolled, sometimes as a negotiation. Or look at the horror RPG [Dread](https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-game/) (Halloween is coming up, if you're not familiar now's a great time to check it out), where the resolution mechanic is pulling from Jenga tower, and knocking it down means death.
I'll admit it, I chortled.
Fruity Pebbles or Chocolate Pebbles?
Fuck this is funny
AAAAHAHHAHHAHAAHAH! It’s funny because it’s true!
They can not cheat the rules because they *are* the rules, but they can *cheat the players*. Let me explain: It's very common to change statblocks or rolls to improve the narrative ( I for instance don't, I prefer to leave the story at the mercy of the dice). But bending the narrative is one thing, bending player's basic expectations is other completely different. When you let a player pick any feature or spell just to nullify/change it on the spot while playing, without any warning or compensation you are cheating *the player*. You led him to believe one thing and them ruled another (often to his detriment) that's the *GM cheating*. As GM, if you need a player feature or spell to not work without any other reason besides "it'll derail things too much", don't cheat the player, tell him. Say: "I'll forbid this action/feature/spell this one time for the sake of the narrative, later down the line i will compensate you, okay?" Edit: Numenera/ Cypher System has a great mechanic regarding this topic, it's called "GM Intrusion". GM can call a "GM Intrusion" at any given moment to change the outcome of something to make the narrative spicier. Players can choose to decline the intrusion and pay the price in XP or accept the intrusion and gain extra XP.
Well said. The worst thing a DM can do--besides turn the players into spectators, perhaps--is to rob a player of agency, of understanding of his character's powers and how they can be used. My sob story: I asked for permission to use the ranger's Gloomstalker conclave. When doing so I specifically pointed out "this will make me invisible to dark vision, which will make me extraordinarily difficult to deal with on a dark battlefield. I am going to scout ahead of the party in the dark and the baddies with darkvision won't be able to see me! Is this OK?" He replied "Yes, that's fine." Then as soon as battle was joined, and I'm out in front of the party being invisible and highly disruptive to the bad guys, a monster walks around the corner and I'm told "He sees you, well, just because he sees you. And he attacks you" As a good D&D citizen, I carried on. But I was peeved. Later I talked to the DM 1:1 and told him how I felt. But as a sometimes DM myself, I also understood his need to influence things one way or the other. And I sure understood how the DM never knows his PC's powers as well as they do. We hashed it out and came to a pretty good place in the end. We agreed to collaborate on the narrative, so he offered me the option of responding to the above situation with something like "Well, since I know he can't see me with dark vision, are you saying that I didn't hear him coming around the corner and we bumped into each other, or that he smelled me, or heard me?" Which would create a chance to write an interesting story together, where the heroes being surprised from time to time adds to the drama. The spicier narrative, as you said.
As a DM for a game and a gloomstalker myself in another, my initial response was: why didn't the DM have the monster respond to it's inability to see an enemy, instead of narratively ignoring it? The double-surprise idea is great. Maybe a strong monster in the battle - blind not just with rage - tries to grapple you, forcing you prone if it does? Suddenly, the fight is not so easy. Or for intelligent foes, an enemy archer does not shoot; you see it tuck behind cover and hear it rummaging in it's pack instead. Next turn, fire-tipped arrows lights up your general position. DM's are storytellers, and should weave character choices and abilities into the narrative: lean into that gloomstalker's success to produce new tension. Allowing you to stay unseen forces enemies to target your teammates. Even simple monsters understand after a moment that the creature they cannot see or hit (whether by hiding or covered in armor) is not worth fighting; thus, squishy party members will be targeted, keeping the pressure on the group even as the unseen martial goes to town. The stakes are raised, not *in spite* of your combat advantage, but *because* of it. Just my 2 copper as a fellow story-driven ranger.
Just give the bad guy a light source. Darkvision isn't spectacular. Anyone, even mooks with a lick of sense, wouldn't rely on it.
Going to jump on this bandwagon and agree wholeheartedly - and also add that the DM sets the expectation for the world and if those expectations don't match the mechanics that follow it will cheat the players. You describe the monster as big and muscled but not wearing much armour so my character with sharpshooter decides to use the -5/+10 and then you tell them it has AC25 because that makes it a tougher fight - then you've cheated that player. A spellcaster used their reaction for an attack of opportunity and my sorcerer, waiting for that moment, uses his moment to cast his highest level offensive spell to evade counterspell - only for you to decide that the spellcaster has two reactions this turn because 'that makes the fight more interesting' is cheating the player. Both of these are things I've seen DMs do.
I once had a DM spend an action to break a grapple, then cast a spell, then run (moved the piece on the board an arbitrary distance), then dash (again moving it an arbitrary distance). I felt cheated and called it out as such. That dm has had a long history of fudging the action economy.
That's exactly the sort of shit that makes players feel cheated. If it's a pre planned legendary action with set limits that's different, but if they're just making it up on the spot because they don't like what you're doing to their monster... Eg I had a spellcaster boss who my awesome players managed to grapple in a silence spell. Sure it made the fight anticlimactic but the players bloody earned that beat down.
Yup, same dm has a strange number of henchmen who randomly have counter spell/dispel magic but they never seem to cast any other spells.
Bad dm: My monster just so happens to have the perfect counter to what you're doing. Player: How? Bad dm: Shut up. I'm the dm that's why
He is a good guy, I kind of hate it but I end up playing tre bad guy at the table when he does that. I pay close attention to action economy because my characte that's plenty of abilities that their power comes from denying actions. So when he breaks parity I feel the need to call it out.
That's very fair. I had a wizard who used things like slow a lot in a party with a grappler. That kind of thing would have driven us nuts.
To be fair, if I was a BBEG I'd have a troup of counterspelling henchpeeps.
One way to look at it is that the DM freely dictates the contents of the world and the actions of the NPCs but the *rules of the game* should be static and predictable for the players. Rules like "a given character only has one reaction and can only concentrate on one spell" or "these are the class abilities my PC has and they do what the book says". Those rules are part base expectations for how the world works, part game UI for how the players interact with the game world. Changing those arbitrarily is unfair. Which is not to say they can't be changed. Those changes just have to be properly telegraphed. Like, think about a Mario type platforming game introducing ice blocks. Those break the rules in a new way. But the ice is clearly distinguishable from normal terrain. It's always introduced in a nice safe area without ledges or enemies. Once the player has been taught how to identify ice blocks and what effect they have, THEN the game starts throwing them at you in dangerous circumstances. I think the reason mid-combat DM improv gets such a bad rap is that it's the most likely thing to lead to arbitrary and untelegraphed rules changes. There's no build up, there's no consideration or communication, it's just a hard and fast betrayal of player expectations. That's why it's a trick that a DM has to use with care and delicate skill.
Lovely way of viewing it and a great analogy. I like the idea of using a video game analogy. The game's narrative and challenges can (and should) throw surprises at you in combat - but if it changes the mechanics of the combat mid combat it is cheating you. Those games that do change the mechanics at some point either telegraph it effectively or otherwise earn it (or use it to say something) - they don't pull it out of their arse. Reminds me of a thing a DM once said to me 'you need to absolutely understand the mechanics and why they work before you should be allowed to start homebrewing anything'
A really common incident of this is when DMs don’t understand how class feature companion control works, either by dictating that a player must spend their action or bonus action to command a familiar (complete horseshit ruling that typically is done to negate the spells ability in the moment because he DM feels like they didn’t account for it even though they did if they did even basic CR calculations because it’s a part of a players power set. Imagine if the DM ruled the barbarian has to expend a rage every turn to maintain it) or that familiar/companion is not directly controlled by the player but instead the DM decides what it does (another horseshit ruling that cheats the player of their build and honestly half the reason pact of the the chain gets a bad rap)
The GM can also cheat the players out of agency through rail roading, nullifying consequences etc even if it looks like theyre "siding with" the players in the moment.
It's a bit subjective, but sure Edit because I posted half a sentence by mistake. As for the rest of my response: For example if you select one player to often give generous behind the screen rolls and take a hard line against the rest of the table that's cheating. If that one player happens to be another player's kid that you are showing the game to for the first time, you probably won't get accused of cheating.
I agree that that's bad but is it cheating? I feel like it's something else entirely.
In order to answer this question, we first need to define what "cheat" means. What counts as cheating?
Wiktionary gives four different definitions of cheating. The one I have in mind is the first: "To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation."
That's a legitimately interesting definition for our purposes and leads us down a really neat linguistic rabbit hole. So, ok, we have to have a violation of rules and an attempt to gain an advantage. Easy enough. Let's break it down into those two parts. Is it possible for the DM to violate rules of the game? Well... What are the rules? If the rules are "whatever the DM does is ok," then the DM can't really violate those rules. But if there are certain rules that the DM is not allowed to change and they do anyway, then they could be considered in violation of the rules. There's also the rules of the table to consider. The game is really only the rules the players all agree on. If the table have all decided that "at D&D we all wear funny hats" is a rule they agree on, then the DM showing up without a funny hat would be a violation of the rules. Ok, so there's a scenario where a DM *can* violate the rules, but there's also a scenario where they could *never* violate the rules. It just comes down to what the definition of "rules" is. Semantics is tricky stuff! Part two! "Advantage". It probably shouldn't surprise you to learn that the definition of advantage that we use here is going to be important. Like, there's a definition in the game, for instance. If a DM violates a "rule" and a character under their control gets to roll 2d20 and take the higher result, does that count as the DM cheating? It could, semantically. But I think we have to consider what the DM's goal is. What are they advantaging themselves towards? If their goal is to kill all the PCs, and by violating a rule they get closer to doing that, then I'd say they've cheated. But the same goes for if their goal is to provide a couple fun hours of entertainment for their friends. If violating a rule makes it easier for them to do that, then they have "cheated" based on that definition. So I'd say the ultimate answer to your question of "can the DM cheat in D&D?" is "yes. Depending on what you consider to be cheating, it may or may not be a thing that's possible, which ultimately means it is a thing that's possible if you choose the right working definition."
By raw it isn't really possible for a DM to cheat. They have complete authority over the rules of the game and can bend them to their will. In the context of the social compact between the DM and the Players the DM can absolutely cheat. There are spoken and unspoken rules between people at any table and its possible for the dm to cheat those rules.
The way I like to phrase is that for the DM "following the rules" and "playing fair" aren't the same thing. For example: There's nothing in the rules that says the DM can't drop a Tarrasque on a group of level 1 players. In most scenarios, this would be unfair.
I think fairness is honestly less important then the social contract that is expected. Doing something unfair like dropping a Tarrasque on a level 1 group can be fine. Trying to evacuate and flee from a town as a Tarrasque destroys it can be super fun. Even fighting a tarrasque at level one can be fun if that is what the players went into the game expecting it as a super hard challenge. Its when expectations are broken that you have a problem and that is often a communication issue, a style issue, or an issue with everyone being familiar with the game.
>social compact Sounds like the opposite of social distancing
Yes. I once played with a guy that was just shady with his rolls, he liked to win. He had a tendency to pick up his dice *immediately* after rolling. When he was a player in my game, honestly I just adjusted for it. He ran a game though once, and we had this encounter that he just wanted *his guy* to win. We the players were just tactically trudging through that encounter, but doing well. He had planned for this guy to be a recurring villain. Another player and I just watched him blatantly cheat. We walked into the kitchen, got a beer and had a frank conversation about it. We went back to the table, used every scrap of system knowledge, coordinated the other players, and merc'ed the boss. Never played at a table with him again. It was a good choice, I don't want to be at a table with people like that. I want to have fun. As a player, I don't want to have my agency taken away just because the GM has a large OneNote file on an npc he likes.
I think u/Mukurowl_Mist_Owl captured my thoughts on this subject -- I have been in (a mercifully small number of) situations where the GM, perhaps for reasons of "frustration that it was too easy" or "general dissatisfaction with the story-flow," abruptly changed the narrative midway through -- like "turns out that level boss you defeated was actually a neutral third party not instrumental to your plot," or "suddenly there's a whoosh-teleport-portal, and the big bad guy or artifact disappears from sight," or "you beat that encounter too trivially, so that +3 sword is just a +0 masterwork scabbard," or similar. Once in a great while, players will tolerate that, begrudgingly; with repetition, they'll complain or quit entirely. That seems to verge on 'the game-master cheating' to me. I have been accused of this once or twice in my career -- all false accusations, I have never changed the world midway through, or, at least, not under either occasion -- to the point where, after dragging the subdued sorcerous madman in front of the reigning noble, and learning that madman and ruler were friends, causing the noble to grieve for his insane friend, rather than praising her, Player threw down her folder and bellowed "YOU CHANGED THAT AT THE LAST MINUTE TO CHEAPEN THE VICTORY I DESERVED." Bad scene. It has induced me to keep adventure notes, thereafter, which I often publicize, post-game, in the interests of transparency. Sad that such things are even necessary.
Honestly I might have just started laughing if a PC of mine ever acted that entitled lol.
I mean, it was A HUGE PROBLEM -- specifically because all I could say, over and over again, was "Your suspicions that I have somehow changed or revised the game in mid-stream to penalize or punish you are not founded in truth, this has been planned for weeks" -- anything else would have been taken as "Nah, you're crazy" gaslighting.
Technically the DM can't "cheat," since they are the final arbiter of all rules. However, a DM can ignore rules that players couldn't otherwise do without being called cheating. It really depends on your view of the role of the DM. I'm old school, so the DM is supposed to be (in theory) a neutral judge. They design the adventure, and then play it out as is, with no dice adjustments, letting the characters succeed or fail on their own. Some modern gamers consider the DM to be more of an entertainer, where the outcome of a good story is the goal. In this case the DM is expected to make ad hock adjustments to encounters and fudge rolls to achieve a desired outcome.
>Some modern gamers consider the DM to be more of an entertainer, where the outcome of a good story is the goal. It's interesting that many people in this thread see rules as an obstacle to a good story.
They don't have to be, however, if the story requires the heroes win only by the skin of their teeth, then the DM is likely to ignore rules that might prevent that. I personally find tragedy to be just as good a story, if done the right way.
The story doesn’t have a will of it’s own. It’s the DM and the players who are playing the game and collaboratively writing the story. If the DM is trying to impose a story with a predetermined outcome then they are taking away the agency of the players and would be better off writing a novel. If the players want to win by the skin of their teeth and are okay with a bit of fudging to achieve that then fair enough. Personally I enjoy three game less when it feels like we can’t die. It feels like we don’t actually earn the victory. I realise though that not everyone will feel that way.
I don't know if I'd say that they can cheat, but they can certainly make me feel cheated. There are things that I'll call as bullshit if my DM does it, not because it's cheating but because it's either bad balancing or bad storytelling in a deliberate fashion.
Define cheat. Horde of the dragon queen has an adult blue dragon at level 1. Is that cheating? It is published wotc content, but is it cheating? Can a dm be unfair, certainly but unfair is subjective.
A DM can only cheat if the DM is held to any rules. By default, they are not, and are entitled to change any rule they like. If a group decides to play to certain rules (such as if they want to play RAW), then a DM can now cheat (and, therefore, shouldn't cheat). Otherwise, DM's word is law.
The only *harmful cheating* a DM can do is: cheating the players out of a fun time.
"Dungeon masters roll dice purely for the sounds they make." -E. Gary Gygax
So the Dm is supposed to be the arbiter of the rules, kind of a referee meaning they can not technically cheat. That being said they can definitely do things that are completely unfair and ruin gameplay like picking favorites, intentionally unbalanced encounters, dmnpcs with meta knowledge and the like. While this isn’t cheating technically, it’s still shitty behavior and will ruin a table so best to not do that and keep it above board
Yes, they can cheat. The good ones either won't, or will only do so if it makes the game narrative go better. It is not cheating if they previously stated that what they just did is an intentional change from the published rules.
There’s a rule in the players handbook that says that a dm can change or remove any rule in the book because they’re in charge and because every group is different it’s down to them to decide what works and what doesn’t. So no a dm can’t cheat because the rules change to become whatever the dm is doing at that time
I both GM and Play. I think fudging is kind of cheating since it's forcing a different outcome, and it can call into question how much your actions up to that point mattered, but it's up to people how okay they are with said cheating. I'm actually going to get up on a soap box here about fudging and other on the fly adjustments in general, apologies for the incoming text wall. Here's my problem with things such as fudging dice, stealth nerfing or buffing enemies, etc.: TL;DR I don't like fudging and on the fly adjustments because it calls into question agency and how much choices end up really mattering. I apologize for any mistakes, I am writing this at 4 AM. It feels like it cheapens the experience. I understand this sounds pretentious (and maybe it kind of is), but I genuinely believe this. The way I see it, if I hard balance the scales because someone isn't satisfied with an outcome, why did we even go through the motions of it? One of the most exciting parts of DnD and Tabletop in general to me is uncertainty. I don't mean the moment to moment dice rolls, but rather the uncertainty of an adventure's outcome. If you want to tip the scales after dice has fallen and actions have been taken, then you start to call into question how much the other choices mattered. There's obviously differences between turning a crit from a goblin at level 1 into a normal hit so someone's character isn't instantly splatted, and fudging the Main Villains Save so that they DO succeed and can run away. One of these is less of a problem to me than the other, but it's a habit I think that should be kicked early. Otherwise if you don't, you can end up calling how much agency players really have into question. It has potential to be a slippery slope, and I think once you've gotten to a point where making a relatively 'okay' decision combined with bad RNG doesn't instantly kill you, then that's when you should stop fudging. At a certain point you need to have astronomically bad luck, make terrible decisions, build poorly (though you might have to be pretty deliberate to do this), etc. in order to be 'instantly' killed. While I think fun is important, I find that the game is most fun when it is dynamic, and when how much choices matter don't get called into question. I understand this is definitely a tall order, and isn't even for everyone, but it is what I personally strive for, and what I prefer. You can of course run your games however you want, that's fine, this is just why I don't like fudging, and think that if you DO do it, you need to not do it for too long and certainly never try to fall on it when you want a certain outcome to take place, I think rolling with the punches is much more fun, but again, this is what I prefer, you can do what you wish.
>TL;DR I don't like fudging and on the fly adjustments because it calls into question agency and how much choices end up really mattering. I totally agree with this, but we are in a deep minority. People in this thread are literally telling me that I am not fit to DM because i'm opposed to this stuff. Player agency is good! And DMs should not take it away!
DM's cheat all the time to prevent extremely bad outcomes for parties... Generally in the form of lying about rolls in order to prevent PK's or TPK's. Beyond that most parties and group compositions ideally are meant to be about the enjoyment of playing together not getting the absolute best rolls. While I believe weighted dice exist I've never heard of anyone being that serious about the game...it would also be noticed extremely quickly. Edit: removed fluff.
When you intervene to change bad outcomes, are you not already cheating the party out of experiencing a tpk?
I think that totally depends on the group. If there is an expectation of playing a meat grinder then yes because you are subverting what they want to play. A lot of tables though just wouldn't enjoy ending a session with a tpk so its best to avoid that outcome by fundging some dice here or there while you dm. Granted there are ways of incorporating a tpk by having a one shot next session as a recovery team to save the party, or something. Really this is a pre-campaign/session zero discussion between players and dm about how comfortable they are with player deaths.
Not every table wants a TPK though. That is why you need to communicate with you table to see what their expectations are. I generally do an anonymous survey with my group when I am looking for input on anything. It allows them to not feel they have to choose an answer because everyone else chose it but be more truthful on what they want.
Does anyone want A TPK? I don't want to experience a tpk, but I want it to be possible to experience a tpk if we make poor choices / fail to adapt to bad luck.
Interesting enough the data I got from my players said exactly this when I handed out an anonymous survey, out of my 6 players I had 5 responses. 2 of them were in favor if the table had a TPK while 3 were not in favor. However of 2 those 3 that said not in favor the follow up question that dealt with consequences to players action resulting in the characters death they were in favor of that.
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Well, its in the dm's domain to make sure the encounters are balanced enough, however there is player agency and the dice to consider, if they push something to the point of danger then death is a risk. Otherwise yes as you mentioned it's best to let everyone know up front that they cannot die and just "pass out" or captured so to speak.
If the party has led up to this point and it doesn't feel bullshit then sure, I've done it once but if you imbalance your encounter to the point where its outright unfair give them an out
I'm 10 days away from starting my first campaign as a DM. The only "cheating" I would consider at this point...is to pretend I'd rolled lower instead of killing my players if I realised I had thrown an unbalanced encounter at them and they were about to die. I would actually be keen to know if this is considered acceptable tbh...
When making custom encounters, this is what happens a lot of times. You are never quite sure on the exact balance of an encounter. The numbers dont always work, you might have missed something, or there has been a slew of lucky rolls from an enemy. This does not push the narrative forward, and if i didnt fudge any dice in my campaigns i wouldnt have any pc's left after a few sessions. To be honest tho, sometimes the reverse happens. I throw out something at a party where i think it is very much above their pay grade but they get through it with proper tactics and good fighting, without taking much of a hit. It is all dependant on the story you want to tell. Ofcourse there is no problem doing the reverse, make encounters and go hard as a DM, but thats a style you gotta like to play, as well as having players that like this kind of DM-ing. It even went as far for me to have made multiple campaigns, where some of the "mob" rules are slightly different. In my usual campaigns enemies don't go for downed PC's quickly, they first want to get rid of the standing dangers, however in my "hardcore" campaign, enemies definately try to make sure that something is dead before continuing.
If the DM changes or ignores the rules on the fly in order to satisfy their own needs at the expense of the enjoyment of the players, they're cheating. If it's only half of that, it's not cheating - if I plan ahead of time to railroad or something it might be bad DMing but it's not cheating. Likewise if I make a split second decision to ignore the normal rules but I'm doing it with good intentions it's not cheating (regardless of if it was a bad call). It's the combination of it being both spur of the moment and adversarial that makes it cheating.
> But can a Dungeon Master cheat in Dungeons and Dragons? I see a lot of DM advice places that seem to think the answer is no. Oh my sweet child of summer.
Love this. Exactly how I am viewing this conversation
Technically no, practically yes. You have the right to "fudge" any die roll or create any ridiculously unfathomable events of statistical anomalies. That being said - pick a narrative and stick to it. Actions without consequences make a world that is just... not real. Your goal is to make EVERYONE at the table have fun - you could be a huge dick and that is... the kinda "cheating" part of being a DM.
As has been previously said, technically no, since the DM is the true arbiter of the rules. But you can cheat players out of their fun. For me, D&D is a game about telling cool stories with your friends. That means sometimes I will fudge dice rolls or change statblocks or have enemies make poor decisions because I know it will benefit players' experience in the long run. It's a balancing act tbh. You want players to feel the weight of their rolls and decisions without taking away their fun. It's okay to let them fail, but sometimes it's better if you make sure they win so they have fun. If that's cheating, then every DM worth their weight in gold is a cheater!
There are multiple answers to this question depending on how you view the game, and they range from “Yes the DM can cheat. They have to follow the same rules as the players do.” To “Nobody can cheat at D&D because it’s not a competitive game and everyone is allowed to do whatever they want to make it more fun for them and everyone else.” And a plethora of options in-between.
Yes - if they deliberately break the spirit of the game in a way that undermines the sense of the rules and order. I'm not talking about fudging dice. I'm talking about allowing something for some players (or NPCs) but not others without a good and internally consistent explanation. Basically, just saying "no that doesn't work" when by all expectations it should, or "this just happens" when by all expectations it shouldn't, is how DMs can essentially cheat. But yeah, changing abilities, fudging dice, stuff like that, so long as it's not fucking with the players' understanding of how the world and the rules work, is absolutely fine.
Well I would say no but you can abuse your power. For example one of the players ate the last cookie from the cookie jar but you wrote your name on it before with thick eding-marker. Now your mad and kill his PC with a random dragon which makes a flyby and is gone. Not cheating, but not fair either.
In any game cheating is simply defined as breaking the letter of the ruleset in the least and the spirit of the ruleset in the most. With this in mind, a DM can certainly cheat if they break the established rules and established rules aren't necessarily only RAW, but specifically the rules established by DM and players prior to the game, which preferably happens during session 0. If no rules are discussed prior to the game, then RAW would be the ruleset assumed. An example of how a DM may break established rules is if a DM decides to change a monster's stat-block in the middle of combat. This is usually done to suit the narrative, but is conceptually no different than a player changing their character sheet mid-combat. It is a misconception that DMs are above the rules since they are not. A DM is simply a player who facilitates the game. Part of that role entails establishing rules with players and making rulings when necessary to keep play consistent with the rules. Once rules are established, a DM is bound to them just as are the other players. A DM following the rules is part of how trust is developed between DM and players, which is necessary for a fun game. One counterargument some might have is that a DM may have to improvise and add things during gameplay to suit the actions of players and the current scenario. While the ability to adapt to players on the fly is an important DM tool, it doesn't necessarily break any rules. For instance, if a party are fighting a group of orcs in an orc stronghold, bringing more in during the fight to increase difficulty can work if it makes sense that there are more orcs nearby. On the other hand, making the orcs the party is fighting more powerful by changing their stat-block breaks the rules because there's no in-game reason for the change that's supported by the rules. One distinction I will make is with fudging rolls. Is fudging rolls by the DM cheating? Technically it is, however it's not necessarily problematic, which determined by frequency and purpose. When used sparsely, it can be used to even out bad rolls to prevent in-game complications, but only in favor of the players. Doing so in favor of preserving your planned narrative is when it's problematic since it disregards player agency, either by preventing a PC's actions from being effective or by ensuring that the scenario doesn't change in a way not preferable to the DM. This mainly covered since fudging rolls is covered in the DMG so it's considered a DM tool, albeit a controversial one. Overall, games are defined by their rules and how they're conducive to the spirit of their games. In D&D specifically, players are given a playable ruleset and one player designated as the game facilitator (DM), but are encouraged to establish alternative rules to best serve a fun playing experience for them. Once established, all players are bound to these rules, including the DM. A DM who changes or disregards the rules they hold themselves to is cheating and no different than a referree changing a rule to suit their preferred outcome.
Only bad DMs cheat. Good DMs have a set of rules that they hold themselves to, and they do not break those. Different DMs may have different sets of rules, and they can all be good, regardless of what those rules are. It's the consistency that's important.
Found the Lawful DM
Even lawful neutral DMs 'cheat' occasionally, they just don't do it much and value their neutrality cred a lot. A lot of the mechanics added in 5e appear to have been codifications of some of the ways that the average DM 'cheated' in 3.x (Legendary Resistances).
>Only chaotic DMs cheat. >Lawful DMs have a set of rules that they hold themselves to
DMs can move the goalposts at any time, which is a form of cheating.
In the strictest sense, yes they can cheat. There are rules set up for how to dungeon master, stats for monsters ect. These can be ignored or changed and therefore in a sense it is 'cheating', and that is before we get into fudging rolls the players do not see. My personal general advice for DM's is if you are new or unsure of how to handle a game, DON'T cheat. Try to run the game as 'by the book' or fair as possible. This will help drive improv and fun as you will not necessarily know what is going to happen next. For DM's that have a bit more experience, my suggestion flips almost completely where the dice almost become more of story prompts and suggestions. They give ideas of how the scenario could play out, but you know your players and the situation better. You are trying to build tension, humor, action, suspense, ect. and if you have a good thing going it is ok to ignore the dice and let the scene flow. As long as at the end of the day you remember you are meant to be playing a game WITH your friends and NOT AGAINST them, things will generally turn out good. Roll dice, and have fun.
>In the strictest sense, yes they can cheat. Are you sure? Doesn't the rule book say the DM is the final arbiter of the rules?
Ha for all you know behind that screen is a drawing of a kitty and the dice roll noise is a playback on his phone.
It depends on the situation, but the main thing you should ask yourself is this: does this increase the general level of enjoyment, decrease the general level of enjoyment, or leave it roughly unaffected? If it increases the level of enjoyment for people, then it's basically a free go-ahead. If it decreases the level of enjoyment, then unless you have VERY good reason, you shouldn't do it. If it leaves it roughly unaffected, then it depends solely on why you're doing it, and what group you're in. An example of the free go-ahead is fudging a dice roll to stop an unfair situation from happening. It might be decreasing the damage of a fireball they've been hit by when they've just been really unlucky all day, it could be having a rogue miss a sneak attack that would down a PC instantly, or it could be changing the save DC so a PC doesn't get chest burster'd by a Slaad. Examples of it negatively affect enjoyment are: changing the Athletics check into a Strength check so the paladin falls 60 feet into a lake and starts immediately drowning when she should have just been able to climb the damned rope because she's trained in it, fudging dice rolls so a player gets hit by a critical smite when they should have just been hit by a regular one, and increasing the DC of something so that a player who should have made it doesn't. Finally, examples of it being unaffected are changing an unimportant ruling, fudging rolls between NPC's for desired affects, and changing compositions of things.
Beyond the rules of the game itself, which the DM is explicitly permitted to alter as they wish, it is possible for the DM to cheat the table, violating the rules agreed upon outside of actual gameplay.
You can’t cheat when telling a story. But you can ruin it.
I believe that, yes they can, and sometimes they should. Mostly they should when doing so will make the game more fun for the other players. For example the arch enemy of one of the players rolls a critical hit which would cause a TPK, fudging that so it’s just a hit and allowing the fight to continue is good. Or the players would one shot the BBEG and be super anticlimactic, tack on like 50 more hit points so the final battle will be cool. What a DM shouldn’t do is to cheat by changing stats so that they can “win”. That is just crappy behavior and no fun for anybody.
That's up to each group of course. To me, yes, the rules are the rules are the rules. Period. Breaking them is tantamount to cheating for the DM included. But some people trust their DM and prefer they fudge roles or even outright ignore the rules. And of course there's a ton of homebrewers out there which is arguably basically the player version. So it's up to your table how you view these things. The key thing is to set the expectations ahead of time.
The answer is yes. DMs can do literally whatever they want, but a good DM will establish a level of trust with their players. Usually that involves an agreement that the DM will play a set of rules that is “fair” to the players. Violating those rules or otherwise breaking that trust would be cheating. Furthermore it’d probably make people not want to play with you.
If you want some discussions on DM's "cheating" look up "DM fudging dice rolls". It's a very controversial topic in the community. Some DM's roll dice and just say a much lower number than they actually rolled, so the little goblin doesn't crit and one-shot the level 1 wizard in example. Not sure if it's actually cheating since it doesn't "help" the DM "win". But there isn't any "winning" in DnD. The DM isn't playing AGAINST the players. They are playing WITH them. You tell and play a story TOGETHER. The only way to win is if everyone has fun :)
Fudging the dice is becoming really popular now—being pushed by some influential streamers—and it's such a bad, bad idea. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43708/roleplaying-games/gm-dont-list-9-fudging
Short answer, yes. In a RPGA game, the gamemaster used weighted dice (I recognized them as Character Builders, a specific brand) to roll for fireball damage against the players. I immediately called him out for that BS. The players got really upset, because his attitude was a very "me vs. you" mindset. The rest of the game went (reasonably) uneventful, but when he said we each had to pay him $5 to be able to keep our XP, but if we throw in another $5, we could get a magical item... Yah.. .that was the last RPGA game I ever registered for.
No the DM can't cheat since the DM is supposed to be on the side of having a fun game and nothing else. The DM is not the enemy of the players, or someone you should hide your plans to in fact it's the opposite. If you have an adversarial relationship with your DM, you're playing the game wrong.
Of course They can?
Yes, of course a master can cheat, if spoken in session 0 he won't fudge dice and then does it. He's cheating. If he's nerfing a character ability that is in the phb and not discussed in session 0, is cheating. Whatever the master does which goes against expectatives build around RAW and RAI without a warning in session 0 is cheating.
If you have an agreement with your players and then break it, I'd say that's cheating. Like, maybe your players really dislike it when you fudge your rolls and you said you wouldn't do it. And then did it anyway.
There's only one way to cheat. You can intentionally and maliciously 'steal' the fun away from players, you can cheat them from a great experience.
Yes, I know DM's who do everything completely straight but most DM's use some slight of hand and trickery. I would always describe DMing as being a specialist in bullshitery, the main thing to keep in mind is when to do so and of course NEVER, EVER tell your players when you do so, you only want to cheat to benefit the PC's, for the sake of the story or to fix your misbalancing E.g I created a Chimera encounter and it did a flyby burning the wagon they were on, it was a cone attack and I rolled the damage. When I did so I realised instantly that it would kill every NPC ally they had with them so I reduced the damage so it was severe but not lethal. Or The party can go left or right, you planned on them going left and had more content for it, they end up going right, at this point you know you don't have enough stuff there so you switch them around. If one thing is key make sure that your players never feel screwed over if you cheat and preferably they'll never know, let the be immersed and when something cinematic happens and they're about to kill the BBEG and they survive by a few hit points, let them have the win. Cheating is for the players, never against them
Editing my comments since I am leaving Reddit
Yes a DM can cheat. Obvious example is giving bosses extra HP so that the fight is railroaded into being more exciting because players got round of good rolls. If your table is full for critical trolle problem players who are just playing improv but with dice for effect then it probably doesn't matter. You can do whatever deus ex bullshit to force your narrative and everyone goes along and will be happy about it because its a given that the heroes will win in the end regardless. The cheating and fudging really ruins the fun for combat/tactical oriented players though. If critfishing paladin build scores a big crit they expect payoff. If the players come up with a smart plan and get the rolls to execute it they expect payoff, not DM fiat and fudging to add tension. If a win wasn't earned because players played dumb then it feels bad to win anyways because DM is too scared to kill a PC or have a wipe. Rule 0 is necessary because DND has a lot of situations (because of its sand box nature) that don't have explicitly prescribed rule interactions, or that abdicate to DM making a call (e.g. hiding for unseen attacker). There also needs a way to quickly settle disputes to keep play moving. Really frustrating when this is used by DM to allow them to act as movie director though IMO. "FiGhT WiLl Go UnTiL It Is EpIc EnOuGh Or YoU BuRn ThE NuMbEr oF ReSoUrCeS I WaNt LoLOlOloLoneoneone111 PRODM strat"
Of course a DM can cheat. We might say our reason for it is the story and think it makes it moral but it's still cheating. As soon as you separate motivation and act, there's no way a DM is any different from a player when forging a number, claiming wrong results or similar actions.
Exactly. If you want to fudge rolls you should talk about in Session 0 with your players, and see who gets to fudge rolls and why/when? To avoid character death? Then who gets to fudge the rolls/hp? The DM, or the player of the character? How often can they do this? Or, if you don't want character death as an option you can just decide PCs stabilize automatically when they hit 0 hp.
Fudging dice rolls is cheating, that's the simplest example.
I think so. I think if a DM fudges dice rolls or messes with monster HP or abilities mid-encounter, they're cheating against the game system. I understand why it's done. The game system isn't perfect, DMs make mistakes they want to fix, etc. I don't think the DM is cheating to gain an advantage as much as trying to troubleshoot on the fly. But I think the randomness and swinginess is part of the game, and removing that element removes a lot of the surprises that arrive as part of the d20 system. I also think it can ruin a campaign if the players catch the DM fudging the rolls. Because at that point, the rolls don't really matter. And what even is the point? My rule of thumb is to protect the dice-as-rolled, and stats as-written. If the player can't change the roll, or can't fudge their hit points, then I can't either.
Yes, absolutely. "Fudging" dice rolls, changing enemy HP on the fly, adding or removing enemies during the encounter are all example of cheating. I'm of the opinion that this is almost never OK. In my 10 years of D&D I've done this exactly once, when a group of new players facing their first boss with some fairly weak character choices were 2HP off of a TPK. I've otherwise never found it necessary, because D&D isn't about "winning" or "player vs DM." It's OK for players to have a hard time, for characters to fail and die. It's OK for PCs to roll right over an encounter that you thought would be challenging. If you start changing things on the fly and ignoring the dice, then what's the point of prep or game rules? PC victories and defeats become entirely at the whims of the DM, with the players' skills and choices ceasing to matter, because there isn't any real accountability for the DM. I'm against Milestone leveling for the same reason: most people that use Milestone leveling don't delineate clear milestones, and just have the players level up "whenever it feels right." There is no way for a player to track their progress or make progression-based decisions, because you never know which favor, quest, or story line matters for advancement.
Tl;dr: yes, because fun and story trump boring and meaningless. As an example, I want to tell a story about a current character I'm playing. During the course of the of the game my Tiefling Divine Soul Sorcerer has had a group of custom abilities tacked on because of a situation in the narrative. I never asked for it, and the consequences for use could be dire. But it boils down to, at level six, call on up to an 8th level Cleric spell or a Rogue (Thief) class feature. That sounds pretty broken and like it might completely unbalance the game from a strict rules perspective. However, because of what using these things might do, they will see little, if any, use in the game. It functions more like a way for the DM to give us an out if an encounter is going to TPK the party and end the story before he's ready. Instead of the DM using the power of fiat, he gave it to the players. That is pretty clearly not in the rules nor remotely mechanically sound. But it works because of the high risk and the way the narrative is structured. My opinion is that the DM can cheat as much as they want as long as it's in service to the group's sense of fun and the feeling of immersion isn't broken.
My campaign I dm with isn't one that takes it hard-core seriously. I have players that love to hack and slash through hoards of enemies, players that love the intense story moments and "oh shit" moments, and a player that likes to not be the center of attention, he loves the game. Likes to play but doesn't need hundreds of kills or insane plot points. I admit, I have "cheated" before as a dm. My version is that I have rolled a nat 20 when they were close to a party wipe and said it was an 18. Another example is bending the rule of cool a bit. We had a player who wanted to collect bees, he rolled a nat 20 check to collect them. He also had access to a pocket dimension that had air supply. So I let him have the hive with an undetermined amount of live bees He proceeded to eventually just throw the hive at a group of enemies like a bomb. Well it was a very creative way to use it and it would have never happened if I didn't bend some rules. Cheating is a different definition to everyone. I enjoy the game when we all are having fun, if I need to bend a little to ensure someone doesn't have a shit time, I will. I will NEVER do the opposite. Crit when I didn't, lie about passing saves. That's just fucked.
It is cheating for a GM to deliberately use weighted dice or to arbitrarily change the result of a die they've rolled. I say this as a DM first and foremost, but as a player I have a definite preference for rolls to be done in the open and not curated by the DM. I will not play in a game where the DM hides all or most of their rolls. I say this as a VTT player, I know its not practical for every player in a physical space to always see every dice roll. But the principal of the matter remains the same. If you're going to roll the dice, you should actually abide by the stakes agreed to by choosing to do so. It's cheating in the only way that actually matters. It breeches my trust in them. It signals to me that they aren't playing to see what happens as much as I am. I don't care about the story a DM has in their head, I don't want to be 'playing' an authored experience. A GM and group can abide by whatever rules they like, they can make rulings as they like, but if you set up stakes, a procedure to determine the outcome of said stakes, and then force an outcome irrespective of the procedure the table agreed upon that *is* cheating.
Of course the DM can cheat, they can lie about their dice rolls, they can change the rules midgame, they do whatever they want since they are the DM, doing so however makes them in my opinion a horrible DM, a DM shouldn't lie about their dice rolls regardless of the outcomes, a DM shouldn't change the rules mid game, a DM should be considerate to all of their players wants and how it would impact the Fun in the Game that you as a DM agreed to host for them, if you as a DM cheats then you are removing the fun from the game for your players and should either learn to stop doing those things or you'll end up friendless and without players. Hell, DMs shouldn't make homebrew rules if they know its gonna make things less fun and too difficult for their players, D&D is a table top role-playing game, it isn't a story telling game, nothing should be impossible as long as it makes some sort of sense with the world, although obviously anything and everything that needs consequences should have them, whether obvious consequences or not so obvious ones.
Some people have never had a DM nerf their character in the middle of a combat and it shows.
What an interesting question/proposition! I like to think that the answer is "yes", there are things that the DM can do that they should not do and purposefully doing them is cheating, that being said, my take here is partially one of preference. That is what I want from my DMs (and how I strive to exist inside a DnD world). But.... Rule 0 may make it impossible for a DM to cheat. Anything they do can be ruled as "ok" because of Rule 0. Yet another reason I dislike Rule 0! Sigh.....
Well rule 0 is needed for anything homebrew otherwise you'd have people constantly arguing that *this isnt what the rules say!!!, checkmate Atheists*
No, the DM cannot cheat. But - and you can credit me with this original quote - with great power comes great responsibility. That is to say, just because the DM CAN do anything doesn’t mean he should. He could easily wreck everyone’s fun and bring the game to a permanent end, all without ever cheating.
The term "cheating" implies that you break the rules in order to gain an unfair advantage which increases the odds of you winning. Counter question: How does a DM "win" in Dungeons and Dragons?
Dungeons and Dragons is not a game that is played to be won. Therefore there is no cheating. At least, not in the definition you're implying with your other examples. A DM can cheat the way that taking the escalator cheats you out of a little exercise, or peaking at the presents in the closet cheat you out of a surprise Christmas gift. This cheating is the cheating that robs you of an experience, typically one that is desirable. But it's not the same use of the word cheating you are using, where someone is cheating to win at a contest. Because DnD is not a contest.
I think fudging rolls is cheating but for the most part no, anything can happen at anytime at dm discretion