Players Changing Dice Results - survey and speculation

[Alan]

My own experience:

I've rarely changed rolls as a player, but here's two examples:

In Fantasy Hero, I described a very cool action for my character, then rolled a failure.  I knocked one of the dice higher.  

In D&D3e, sitting beside a player who cheated, I reported one or two fumbles as failures, and one failure as a success.  He was the alpha player in the group - you know, the one with the most effective character, most influence in game and out.  I was jealous and frustrated cuz no one was recognizing the cool details I'd added to my character and the little bits of role-play I used to bring them out.

(As an aside, his technique was to roll the d20 several times while waiting for his turn, then when he got a good result, he'd slap a neighbor on the shoulder so they could witness it.  The result then got used on his turn.  Sitting next to him, I probably cheated more in one year than in my whole 20 years of gaming.)

So my own reasons for changing dice rolls probably fall into betrayal of player visions, and betrayal of player effectiveness, along with competition for player recognition.

[John Kim]

I think I have changed die rolls more to liven things up.  This might mean that I claim a good roll when I try an unusual maneuver.  However, I also have sometimes claimed a worse roll than what I actually rolled -- such as a critical failure.

What do you mean "liven things up"?  For whom?

Also what game system(s) did you do this in, and which did you choose to crit in?

I would judge "liven things up" based on my own tastes, though I think that there is generally overlap with other players.  I guess I have more tendency to do this in bell-curve or flat-linear systems, and less so in systems with a lot of open-endedness and critical results.  Basically, there have been times when play degenerates into a series of die rolls with medium results, or alternating results (i.e. success/failure/success/...).  It can liven things up to have a string of successes/failures, or an extraordinary failure/success.  One exception: for perception rolls a success is almost always more interesting.  

As I said before, I find I don't remember particular examples of die roll changing or even particular patterns -- so take the above with a grain of salt.  It has certainly always been infrequent and usually minor.  I remember there was a Call of Cthulhu convention game where I hardened against distinguish-by-color percentile dice.  I used it myself a bit during the game to change rolls, but I found it distracting and annoying.  My character was a nosy reporter, and I think I changed die rolls to find some things out but also cause trouble early in the adventure -- and changed one in the end to have a spectacular death.

[Enoch]

(As an aside, his technique was to roll the d20 several times while waiting for his turn, then when he got a good result, he'd slap a neighbor on the shoulder so they could witness it. The result then got used on his turn. Sitting next to him, I probably cheated more in one year than in my whole 20 years of gaming.)

Wow, I know someone who is just like this.  He even uses the same technique.  Another technique he uses is he'll have multiple d20s in his hand and roll them all at once, never telling us which one he's using.  I presume he does it because he is kind of like the 'cool guy' the 'top dog' amongst our circle of friends (I'm the secretly cool dog who manipulates things secretly :-)).  So he kind of does it to make sure his character is superior.

-Joshua

[Dr. Velocity]

Although detail is good, I think you may be OVERLY dividing things, such as the Betrayal/Failure of Player Influence/Vision/Effort; I think these could all really be more or less the same thing - I mean, the fine detail is different but in effect, the gist is that the dice are outright nullifying (almost seemingly to SPITE them) something that the players feel *should* occur, or be invioble (I always look good when I ride a horse, I always am able to effectively charm the townsfolk, I planned everything out AND I role-played like a house afire) - the reasoning in these cases can still be summed up, if you asked someone right at that time why they 'misread' a roll instead of going with the outcome, the average answer would boil down to 'because that would have been STUPID'.

I think its not so much the human touch, even, that people seem the need to fudge back INTO the totally cold system, its really more more of a generally agreed upon cooperative aesthetic contract, to keep the game from producing counter-productive or just overall unworkable or displeasing results. If it doesn't do ANYTHING for the story, either to move it along or to present something interesting (drama, comedy, new but reasonable obstacle), then screw that. The referee AND the players have enough of a cooperative and vested interest in the game that no one wants to see the following (which I remember):

Five Warhammer FRP characters climbing a steep mountain. I think ONE of us had any sort of related skill to perform this feat.

*roll* AH SHI... I fumbled.

Okay, roll dex.

*roll* FOR THE LOVE OF... I fumbled.

Okay, luck.

*roll* I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS!

Fumbled?

*nod*

I believe it was like the 2nd guy in line of the big rope array we all had, to keep each other from falling. This guy, good high stats, lots of physical skills, nonetheless, rolled natural 96 or better, three times in a row. He was close enough to the lead climber, who had some skill at climbing, and ahead of everyone else, to cause a mass catastrophe - rolls for everyone else; almost everyone failed or fumbled at least once, most twice, including the lead climber - it was enough that the number of good rolls were not good ENOUGH to outweigh the bad ones by any stretch.

In reality, with as many bad rolls as there were from EVERYONE, overlaying standard understanding of failure and fumbled rolls, the entire party basically, objectively, should have tumbled down the mountain and plummeted to their deaths. But who the HELL wants that? The referee worked WAY too hard and we had ALL played this scenario way too long, for the band of burgeoning heroes to meet their end thanks to a simple time-wasting challenge not even important to the story. If one or even two of us had bought the farm, I think that would have been ok probably, everyone would have been miffed but accepted it as adding detail and grit and allowing the other characters to remember, sadly, back at home. "And that fateful day, on Mount Boogledyboomboom... Granaraph missed his handhold..."

I don't recall exactly what happened, I think the ref sort of winked and asked for 'last ditch effort rolls' or something, or let Priests make Divine Intervention rolls, something - it was grasping-at-straws-and-by-god-don't-tell-me-you-didn't-make-it time and while some of us tried to keep the balance by still faithfully admitting failed rolls, possibly at the expense of our characters, most of the rolls succeeded or critically succeeded - some authentically, some by 'player fiat'. I think there was some sort of geas and also Fate Point debt or something over the whole thing, just so we didn't feel like we ALL had just shamelessly cheated WITH the referee's help. Amusingly, as soon as we all made our rolls, the ref decided the top was a LOT closer than anyone originally thought.

On the subject of cheating to FAIL rolls, usually, since I played very little of anything else, it would all be Call of Cthulhu Original 4th Edition or Warhammer FRP, with a smidge of Paranoia, Shadowrun, Hero, Traveller and Runequest. Specific situations don't always stick out in my mind because the cheating helped create a more smooth, seamless blending of parts of the game, and the results and outcome overshadows the cheating, in memory.

I was playing a ... Newtling or some gecko thing in RQ, and we encountered some wild fire-breathing lizard thing - not overtly hostile but not a domestic puppy dog. Taking into account my Newtling's naivete, kinship with other reptiles and basic obliviousness to danger, I repeatedly fought off the players' and ref's attempts to get me to NOT try to pet the lizard. Then, when it predictably bit me, I fudged by dodge roll, fudged the hit location roll, AND fudged the damage roll, so I entirely lost my left hand, instead of taking like 4 points to the abdomen. It was funny, sort of gritty, gave the other players a fight, let the priest give some of his skills some use, kept the players on their toes in future encounters since they had to be wary of what I was going to blunder into, plus I got to develop some odd mentality and I think I got a nickname out of the deal.

I guess while there are a lot of considerations, I will intentionally FAIL at something if it will be funny yet still fitting (or NOT fitting if its really weird), whether it involves my character or not. I did, however, in Warhammer, and also in CoC, fail my survival and/or sanity rolls - CoC, I wanted a more quirky, more interesting unpredictable character, so I decided to go insane; one too many times and the referee got a new NPC - Warhammer, I decided that my halfling pit-fighter had run his course and was world-weary and went out the way he wanted, in battle. The other guy that was playing at that time was bummed because our two characters always fought side-by-side, his lanky human Outlaw and my Halfling Pit Fighter. He even joined a cult and made a deal with a necromancer and everything to bring me back to life (fully, not zombie-fied), but from then on I decreed my halfling would just sit at the Inn he bought and be a bitter old man who had seen his own death and the tunnel of light, and had been pulled back by a well-meaning but clueless friend.

Lastly, I also would add that besides dissatisfaction or frustration at just unworkable outcomes, I admit I've just outright cheated, sometimes "just because" - still there's usually a reason - the linear combat (roll to hit, do damage) idea on things that really weren't going to pose a problem, mentioned by someone else, is probably the most common - it seems people cheat in combat, not so much to save their own character, but really to just speed up the game to get past 'the slow parts', like the ubiquitous 'group of 6 goblins' - you know, not a threat, yet crazy enough to attack and chase us if we ran.

[Alan]

Although detail is good, I think you may be OVERLY dividing things, such as the Betrayal/Failure of Player Influence/Vision/Effort; I think these could all really be more or less the same thing - I mean, the fine detail is different but in effect, the gist is that the dice are outright nullifying (almost seemingly to SPITE them) something that the players feel *should* occur,

This survey grew out of a question about whether changing dice rolls had any relation to GNS theory.  As GNS theory is about the player's internal motivation for making a decision, we need to determine what the internal motive was, not the external result.

[talysman]

I guess this thread is starting to drift.  The original question was:

When have you (as player not GM) changed dice rolls (misreported modifiers or success/failure) and why? What were contributing details - game system, group culture, expectations, a tournement at stake, a defining moment for your character?

to clarify my previous post: although it was the GM's decision to reroll, he also had the players reroll bad rolls. there were no GNS issues involved: we just didn't like bad rolls at the worst possible times.

[rafial]

I'm intrigued by the phenomenon mentioned in several posts regarding the socially dominant player who "cheats" in some fairly obvious way, that I'm sure that everybody at the table is well aware of, but whose behavior is tacitly accepted and ignored because of their status within the play group.  I find it interesting because it seems to be a mechanism whereby a larger degree of real life influence is translated into increased character influence.

Just an observation.

[Alan]

to clarify my previous post: although it was the GM's decision to reroll, he also had the players reroll bad rolls. there were no GNS issues involved: we just didn't like bad rolls at the worst possible times.

So the GM decided whether a player got a reroll?  Why did the GM in your example choose to reroll damage that would have killed the character?

Rafial: I've only encountered one alpha gamer.  I wonder if they aren't more common in environments like RPGA - he was an RPGA member.

[talysman]

to clarify my previous post: although it was the GM's decision to reroll, he also had the players reroll bad rolls. there were no GNS issues involved: we just didn't like bad rolls at the worst possible times.

So the GM decided whether a player got a reroll?  Why did the GM in your example choose to reroll damage that would have killed the character?

I'll phrase it a little differently to help make it clearer: players didn't reroll without the GM approval; they sometimes said "this is a bad roll, can I do it again?" and sometimes the GM didn't wait for them to ask.

also, to reiterate: we're talking about original D&D and AD&D1e, with groups of 4-8 players at a time, and three members of the group each occasionally acting as GM.

I can't really answer the question "why did the GM choose to reroll damage that would have killed the character?" even though I was one of the three GMs. we just didn't go for a kill, at least not if there wasn't any resurrection magic handy. in some cases, we allowed the roll to stand, but retroactively changed the victim: "ok, that attack was really on one of the henchmen, who is now dead."

[Matt Wilson]

I'm intrigued by the phenomenon mentioned in several posts regarding the socially dominant player who "cheats" in some fairly obvious way, that I'm sure that everybody at the table is well aware of, but whose behavior is tacitly accepted and ignored because of their status within the play group.  I find it interesting because it seems to be a mechanism whereby a larger degree of real life influence is translated into increased character influence.

Just an observation.

I've actually never encountered anything like that. Alan's description of it stunned me.

[TheGameBoy]

I held a year long campaign of the SWd20RPG that went extreemely well for having about 7 players and being the first time roleplaying for all of us.

In one game, one of the characters was on top of a roof on Coruscant (the city-planet). He was fighting off some baddies, and the rest of the team was fighting below. He finished off his group, and instead of running down the stairs to his friends below, he decided to jump off the building and swing into the glass window below. As most of you know from ep1 and ep2, the buildings are miles high. One failed roll, and he would have fallen for quite some time. He rolled, and succeded, smashing into the window and taking out the rest of the baddies. Thinking back, I think he may have modified the roll, but none of us cared. It was awesome.

Another time, when I was playing, we were again on Coruscant, and fighting in a high-class night club high above the city. My character was grappling with a bounty hunter, and I fudged the roll as the bounty hunter and me were thrown out the window. I made sure I failed it, to give my character a heroic death. This was years before Aragorn was thrown over the cliff with the Warg in The Two Towers, but it was the same effect. My character was dead, but he died well. That is the only time I've fudged a roll in my Player experience (which isn't too often, since I'm the GM usually).

Mark

[Matt Wilson]

I have a question for Mark regarding the SWd20 game post above. I have never played it, so I don't know what the rules say.

In example 1, did failure have to mean that the character fell? Could you have interpreted failure instead as the character slipping on the rope and flying through the window off balance, losing initiative or getting a round of surprise against him?

I'm specifically wondering if the rules say that something like what I describe would be considered a poor description of failure.

[TheGameBoy]

In the SWd20, the failure would have resulted in him falling. He used no rope (which would have helped), But he may have had the opportunity for one more roll (maybe).

[NoShoes]

One aspect of misrepresenting die rolls that hasn't come up is during character creation.  I believe the only time I've ever "cheated" on rolls has been during random character creation like D&D to ensure that the character would be fun to play.

Frequently this is done fully with GM approval, but not always.  I think it probably comes up in most groups using systems like D&D.

[rafial]

Re: sactioned cheating by "alpha players"

I've actually never encountered anything like that. Alan's description of it stunned me.

I just recently read Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine, which was written back in the early 80s, and he mentions this phenomenon in several of the play groups he studied.  It was interesting to see that something similar persists to this day.

Thinking about my own experience, I do see something similar. The players I described who consistantly misreported their die rolls (I'm thinking about a particular Rolemaster campaign here, but they did this in other games) were not particularly sanctioned by the GM for this behavior, and in retrospect I believe this was done because the players in question were not particularly committed to the game, and the GM was afraid of losing his players if he didn't let them do this.