I think that the vast majority of people who play D&D take for granted just how important trust and honesty are to the game. In order for everything to work we have to assume that everyone playing is honest and trustworthy. Of course, we don’t come right out and ask this of the other players; you merely accept it as fact. If players cheat or abuse the trust we’ve given them in good faith, then the system won’t work and the gaming experience will be tarnished.
Just this past weekend I was playing a Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) adventure at my FLGS and something happened that really highlighted the importance of trust in D&D. It was an unusual situation, and the more I thought about it the more I realized that perhaps it’s time to discuss just how vital trust and honesty are in D&D.
The LFR Fiasco
We should have expected that things would be unusual after one of the PCs was killed during the first encounter. Normally, the party would chip in and get this character brought back to life as quickly as possible. This way the player wouldn’t have to suffer because the character died. The cost was only 600 gp and as fortune would have it the deceased PC had more than this on him.
The rest of the players agreed to find a Cleric to perform a Raise Dead ritual and bring him back to life, especially since none of us would incur any expense ourselves. The player with the dead PC refused to pay. He said he’d rather invoke the Death Charity clause. Doing so meant that he forfeited any awards or treasure and could not replay this adventure again using the deceased character after being brought back to life.
The DM then gave the player another option. He let him bring in a new character to complete the rest of the adventure. This was deemed acceptable. So although the party lost one PC during the first encounter, we picked up a new PC before beginning the second.
The rest of the adventure ran smoothly. Everyone who played and survived the entire adventure got full XP and treasure. The player whose character died got pro-rated rewards for the encounters his new character completed successfully (basically everything except rewards from encounter #1 which the PC wasn’t present for anyway).
The DM then reminded the player that even though he invoked the Death Charity rule for his original character, that PC would still suffer the normal penalties associated with a Raise Dead ritual (-1 to all attacks, saves and skill checks until reaching 3 milestones).
The player was outraged. He said he’d do no such thing. As far as he was concerned it was as if the first (deceased) character was never there. The next time he used the original character he had no intention of applying any penalties. And because he invoked the Death Charity rule he wouldn’t suffer any loss of gp either. Basically he wasn’t willing to suffer any consequences for the original character’s death.
Although I actually had very strong feelings about how this was developing, I wisely decided not to insert myself into a situation that I had no business being part of. We’ll see in subsequent weeks how this situation plays out. Since this player only plays LFR at the FLGS with essentially the same people we’ll see if he abides by the actually LFR community rules or if he just does what he wants, what is best for him and his characters, rules be damned.
I stand firmly beside the DM on this one. In-game the character didn’t weigh the consequences of his actions. He chose to rush ahead of the party despite our warning against doing so. As a result all of the monsters in the room attacked him and only him. The result was a character death in the first round of the first encounter.
If the character is allowed to come back into LFR play without consequence then this player essentially got to play his character poorly without penalty. I’m all for playing the character the way you want to, but you have to be willing to accept the consequences. Those who act cautiously survive. Those who rush in without thinking risk death.
Without Honesty There’s Chaos
What this really highlighted for me was just how much trust is involved when playing D&D (or any RPG). Every time you play you make a lot of assumptions based on trust. You trust that the players at the table have built their PCs honestly and according to the rules. I know as a DM I’ve never once wasted time verifying that a PC is built to spec. I just assume that my friends have followed the rules or the agreed guidelines when creating and maintaining their characters.
Dice are rolled every time there an attack is made or damage is dealt. Both the players and the DM assume a) that the numbers are being called off accurately, and b) any modifiers are being added appropriately. Again, I rarely monitor anyone else’s dice rolls. I have enough to worry about running my own character. When I’m the DM I’m too busy running all of the monsters to check that your roll was actually a 15 and not something else.
Recording damage is another aspect of the game that requires truest. When I used to play D&D 2e back in high school I had a few players who tried to pull one over on the old DM and didn’t record their damage correctly. After a while I just tracked all of the damage myself. It was so cumbersome it ruined the gaming experience. Eventually I said that for the game to work there had to be trust. If they weren’t willing to be honest then I wasn’t interesting in playing. After that the damage was recorded accurately.
So many elements of the game rely on honesty and trust. There’s a social contract, an understanding that everyone will abide by the rules. As soon as one person decides that they don’t have to abide by these rules then things fall apart.
In the case of LFR there is a much greater element of trust required. In all of the time I’ve played LFR I’ve never once been asked to provide any proof confirming my character’s XP, level, treasure, magic items or story rewards. We all know that for the system to work we all have to play by the same rules.
Looking back on how things played out this past weekend I have to admit that I’m disappointed that one player felt he didn’t need to follow the rules. He made a bad decision and paid dearly with a character death. But his decision to cheat and pretend that this adventure didn’t happen for that character (and that his death never happened) sullied the experience for me. As I don’t know the player very well I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to say anything right there and then. However, if I’m the DM moving forward I think I’m going to talk to him and ask that he not play at my table, after politely explaining the reason why.
I think we can all agree that for things to work there needs to be trust. What kind of negative implications have you experienced first hand when players abuse the truest of the group? How have you resolved these issues? How might you have handled the situation I experienced? Would you act differently if you were the DM than you would as just another player at the gaming table?
Related reading:
- Cheating in Dungeons and Dragons
- Avoiding Death (Part 1 | Part 2)
View Comments (15)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
1 2 Next »Wow. Just wow. My heart breaks when I read this sort of thing, since I've experienced my share of loophole players (both as DM and co-adventurer), and there's just no convincing them that they are killing the game for everyone.
As you say, you're entering into a contract, and it's not a one-to-one (player to DM), but one to many (player to everyone). You play by the rules, we all have fun. You subvert and skirt the rules, and we all have to drink that bitter poison.
In my experience, it all comes down to people play table-top RPGs to do things they can't normally do in real life. The dark side of that is some players use it as an excuse to do things that are absolutely socially inappropriate (killing random villagers, telling off authority figures, etc.). Such actions are fine within The Game (as long as they don't disrupt the experience for everyone else) but occasionally such actions bleed over from the "character" side of the equation to the "player" side of the equation. The PLAYER then does things that are absolutely socially inappropriate (lying, cheating, backstabbing other players, etc.) and hurtful to the other players.
It's one of the dangers of any social interaction that some people aren't going to play by the assumed rules of that type of interaction. As Mr. Trimline said, it's also very hard when someone is being socially inappropriate to convince them that they are being such.
I truly believe in honesty at the table. I have a couple of players who come and play with handwritten character sheets and their characters are extreme. I have been playing with these people for years and find that they always have the most outrageous characters that are extremely cumbersome. Their spells are written half-assed on their page, they have an out for every situation with tons of damage and I finally got sick of it.
I told them to put their characters on a bonified character sheet (v3.5). I downloaded HeroForge and SpellForge for them and told them for next session to have it done up.
They tend to come up with ridiculous bonuses and feats and items that I cannot seem to find.
Honesty and trust are very important when you are gaming. If you cannot trust them then a couple of things happen.
1. You question everything about their characters
2. It slows down gameplay
3. It ruins the game for DMs and players alike.
Thanks for the reminder.
This is something I haven't really put much thought into before. I've been playing (usually DMing) with a group of friends for more than 10 years now, and it's never really come up about lying or cheating. Everyone is open and honest, except for me. The only 'lying' I find acceptable is when the DM fudges rolls to make the encounter either more interesting, or to "miss" with an attack at just the right moment.
I DMed a group of players at a local game store for a few months. They all seemed to personify you situation where everyone plays as they wish, rules be damned. It was my worst D&D experience ever. They were all out to win no matter what. I couldn't stand the arrogant liars who could do no wrong and defended all the absurd abilities and bonuses with obscure rules they couldn't remember where they saw it, loopholes that were violating the spirit of the game, or flat out lying. If there is no honesty, there is no fun.
I just find it sad that a player would be such a bad sport and so disruptive over a temporary -1 penalty. If it was something serious, like the loss of a limb or vital magic item, I can see trying to avoid it but this was such a minor penalty it hardly seems worthwhile to be a jerk over it.
Personally, I think it would be sort of fun to play the 'disoriented by death' characters, even with minor penalties.
I joke with a few members in my group about their 'cheating,' usually after they pull off some big hit or some amazing power, but I am fortunate enough that I can trust my group and to the best of my knowledge, no cheating actually occurs. There are too many natural 1's and missed skill checks over time that I never get that feeling that someone is consistently rolling too well.
However, when Essentials was released, one of my newer players created a rogue and was doing ridiculous amounts of damage at level 1. After two sessions of him laying waste to the enemies, I decided to look more closely at the Essentials characters and realized, Essentials rogues put out some serious damage and that he was not cheating.
Before this, the last time I thought someone in my group was cheating was back in 2000 with 3rd edition. After a few sessions, it has hard not to notice that this person never missed an attack and despite taking solid damage, never seemed to be in trouble. When I asked for his character sheet to check over his stats, he refused to hand it over and I decided it was in everyone's best interest that he did not return. As a DM, I put in way too much time to be cheated, not only is it not fun for me, but to everyone else in the group as well. I find it incredibly selfish.
Since then, I have been blessed. I agree with Alton, it takes too much time and energy to question everything about a character and players actions. Plus, since we are so role playing heavy in my groups, there isn't much that can't be fixed if things go south. Besides, if you are going to cheat, why even play the game? I can just announce that they are the most badass character around, hand him his +20 Vorpal blade and then play the game with people who actually want to play the game.
As for the situation you are in Ameron, I too would have asked the player to leave, if it were in my power. After his argument with the DM, I would be hard pressed to believe either his character sheet was correct (with the -1 penalties) or if he wasn't fibbing the numbers on his rolls to overcome the penalty. If at any point I feel I cannot trust my players, it is time for them to go.
I will admit though, last year I used some loaded dice to win a bet from one of my group members and won a Coke, but I then turned around and bought everyone drinks and candy bars, so I do not feel too bad. However, since then, my players have banned me from using any red dice.
You're right on about it feeling like such an implicit, expected part of the game that we never really talk about it except for some table rules that are somewhat related.
Beyond the issues of honesty and trust, this article raised another few questions for me on the more mechanical/game management side of things:
How prominent should penalties and penalty tracking be in general, in a game as tactically rich and tracking-complex as D&D 4e?
What about when related to character death, which is already a sort of "ultimate penalty"?
The person in your story certainly seems to be acting like a jerk. I don't really know how to respond to someone who openly ignores basic rules of the game.
I think trust in LFR is a super-big issue, because everyone is responsible for his or her own character. This really comes into play as the rules around LFR change. At one point in time it was legal to buy uncommon items, and now it isn't. Given that most items in the game are uncommon, this is a highly significant change. I was highly tempted to retcon some purchases for characters (and I definitely made purchases on everything I could think of before the rules changed). Things like the Oil of Flesh returned consummable is something I want all of my Paragon level characters to have, and now I have to hope I find it in some mission.
You made the right call.
Me, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I'd probably have asked the guy to buck up and take his lumps. If he refused, I'd have just shrugged it off.
But yeah, we all need to trust that we're in this together, and act accordingly.
D&D is a group activity and when you have individuals are are in it for individual gains, this can happen. Its unfortunate and I'd hate to think this guy is out there in the community potentially turning off new gamers, but what can you do?
Would like to revoke his RPG card.
Yeah that is unfortunate. If I were in your position, I would have done the same thing, and like you, if I were to DM a future game with that player, I would also have a talk with him. At this point its a case of "time will tell". Maybe he'll realize he was being unfair with that reasoning and will end up following the rules. Its jusy not fair for everyone else to have someone cause this kind of grief.