In recent history I gamed with a new group and (within this group) found the following to be completely acceptable cheating:

Coming to every game (which started about once per session) with a pre-rolled character with no stats less than 16 (DnD) because you simply re-rolled your stats repeatedly until you got ones you liked.

Rolling a d20 incessantly durring play (I’m inclined to think it was a nervous habit or boredom) then shreiking when a 20 was rolled and asking excitedly “Can I keep that? PLEEEEEASE?”

Saying “Eh. I don’t like that roll.” and re-rolling.

If there was any less blatant cheating going on, I didn’t notice it, though a few of the players were genuinely bad at math and “cheated” that way, but we had to remind them “your math is wrong bozo. That totals to 27 not 23.” as much as the reverse.

Interestingly enough, in my (limited) experience, women seem to blatantly cheat FAR more than men. It seems that men react less negatively towards women cheating, so they can actually get away with it, as opposed to men who know they won’t get away with it and don’t even try.

Sure, it’s “just a game.” And in that sense, cheating isn’t something to get hyper about. Any I don’t. Yet I would say that I monitor for cheating. Does that mean I’m sitting there constantly looking for cheating like some test proctor? No, it mostly means I’m aware that cheating is something that can arise in a game situation. From there, if I observe cheating, or have it noted to me by another player, I decide if the cheating is disruptive to other’s fun. If it’s not disruptive to anyone’s fun, I ignore it. If it’s mildly disruptive, and I think a gentle response will be effective, then I do so (reminding players – in general, not pointing fingers – to keep track of resources, or to be consistent in how they roll their dice and decide when a die is cocked or not).

And you know what, sometimes cheating is fun for all. When I was in high school, we often played dice bowling, where you roll the dice one at a time, and if you didn’t like the result of the first die, you rolled the second die and tried to knock the first die to a better value.

And I have had disruptive cheaters in my games. One guy in college cheated so obviously during chargen. He rolled a stat, then got me sidetracked in conversation, when the sidetrack ended, I noted that the dice had changed. And he constantly cheated in other ways. How did I respond? I simply chose not to fudge in his favor – at all (though that particular campaign was an attempt a minimal fudge). Right off the bat, he lost the opportunity to re-roll to try and get better stats (a fudge that was still totally common in that campaign). Eventually his character did something stupid, and died (despite his attempts to cheat during combat). He stalked off in a huff. Which was about what I figured would happen. It was clear from his attempts to cheat that he was not interested in the relatively hard core gaming we were doing.

No serious harm done other than a bit of wasted time.

Another time, another player noted that he thought a player was cheating, I watched and sort of agreed with him and watched the player. I also made a comment about declaring rolls and stuff. She and her SO ended up quitting soon. Again, they really weren’t interested in the same sort of gaming.

Frank

In this particular incident he was playing a Kobold character. His stat line was Str: 18, Dex: 22, Con: 18, Int: 17, Wis: 18, Cha: 19.

Kobolds as PCs have the following stat adjustments: -4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution. Meaning that he presumably rolled a 22 on 3d6 for Str, a 20 for Dex, a 20 for Con, a 19 for Cha… Ultimately, no one in the group cared about the obviously cheating rolls, though; If you cheat and still don’t contribute meaningfully to the game, it’s the latter that is problematic.

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This isn’t the SAT — this is a group of people coming together to play a game.

A cheater, ultimately, only cheats themselves, IMO.

I value my friendship with my other gamers too much to worry about cheating. If you rolled a 20 then that’s good enough for me. I have these people in my house, sharing my food, and playing around my children. If I trust them enough to let them into my life and socialize with them then I certainly trust them enough not to cheat at the gaming table.

Sometimes, the behavior you expect is exactly what you receive. That is to say, if you expect the worst from people they’ll probably find a way to meet your expectations. Expect more.

I didn’t buy them. I’d spent a couple hours typing spells into Word about a week earlier.

Really? Any idea what they’re called?

It already is. Enworld was advertising them a few months back.

I do that with my character’s spells. I play a cleric who’s always casting buff spells and I got tired of having to announce the spells results 2 or 3 times while everyone wrote them down, then again every round.

The cards contain the spell name, the bonus amount and type and the duration.

Things run a lot smoother now that I can just announce the spell I’m casting and pass the cards around.

1. Monitor for honest mistakes. The monitoring is light, and it helps the players as much as it hurts. In the long run, it helps cut out mistakes, too, as people learn where the common mistakes occur.

2. If you have someone cheating, and they are over the age of 20, give them one chance to stop it. Tell them flat out that you won’t tolerate it. Next time it happens, they are gone. If they mature in a few years, they can come back. I don’t think such late maturity happens very often. A person that will flagrantly cheat a second time in your game after being called on it isn’t shamed, and is just upset at getting caught. They probably cheated in school. They’ll cheat at work. You are better off without them in the group, causing bad feelings.