Cheating in games is bad, right? Haven't we all be told "Cheating is Bad". I've heard that before, many times. All the way back to mom telling me "Winners never cheat and Cheaters never win." Yeah, I heard it, then I saw the real world. BAD cheaters never win, the good ones, well, they're re-elected. (whoops? too controversial?) But think about your teachers, your parents, your role models, even sports athletes when I was growing up all said no cheating.
Then I remember going to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and cheering for the black knight, where everyone was chanting "Cheat To Win" over and over again. Was he cheating? Definitely! Now I was there many years ago, so I don't remember what he did, but it was probably taking someone sword away while they were bowing to the beautiful princess or something, but everyone laughed. He got yelled at, but then started to win anyway. The crowd loved it, the kids screaming "Cheater!" at him, trying to tell the guards when he would do something underhanded.
Why would they do this? Because it was fun! People loved it, it got them involved. The goal wasn't to teach morality, though the cheater did, in the end, lose, that isn't the point I'm making. Cheating isn't always a bad thing, especially in some kinds of gaming.
In roleplaying games, I will freely admit that from time to time, I'll cheat as a Game Master. If I'm running a dungeons and dragons game, and the bad guy rolls a critical hit 5 times in a row, yes, I'm likely to make some of them just hits, or even misses (though that's not likely) just to keep the game fun. No one likes an adventure ending because of insane rolls. If the players can take those kinds of hits, yes, I'll likely not "cheat" but if that one volley would remove most of the players from the game, that's not fun for me or for them.
On the same context, though significantly more rarely, I will also admit that I have cheated while playing RPGs. I really can only think of one example though, and I was playing a character in the Wheel of Time D20 game. I was playing an Aiel, supposed to be this highly skilled, deadly beyond compare class and they were nothing but weak fighters in the game. That's not the point of my cheat though, I still remember it, and why. I rolled a D20 (as you do in D20 games, go figure) for 5 reasons consecutively.. some attacks, some strength checks. I got five 1s in a row. To prevent my third fumbled attack in a row, I lied and said it was a 2. Just as a note, I had played that character in four five-hour sessions... so 20 hours of playing.. and never rolled over a 5 on the D20.. Something was telling me to stop playing that game.
There are several gamers I've played with that like to cheat, knock dice, or just lie about what they rolled to make themselves seem more powerful or strong. At first I would try and position players in a more close area, making cheating harder, or watch more closely. Then I realized that I was enjoying running games less when I had to watch, and they were enjoying the game less as "average" characters. Personally I like the idea of a fumble here or there (note there is a limit to how much fun that is, see above) and the randomness of the dice. That's why I try to, except for exceedingly unlikely occurrences, let things happen as they will. But if that player is not going to have as much fun without that cheating, as long as it's minor, I'd rather overlook it. We're not in tournament, we're not "professional" it's just to have fun.
Back to my very weird-al-esque roundabout way of saying it, you have to remember why you're cheating, and what you're cheating about. I'm most certainly not saying to cheat constantly and win every game you can, not at all. What I am saying is that sometimes cheating improves the game, makes things better for everyone involved. If you're cheating just because you want to win the game or be the best, I'm finger-waggling at you right now, you bad person you! But sometimes cheating isn't all that bad, even if you're cheating on a game with your daughter just so it can end, because the sweet girl is just getting tired of playing but doesn't want to stop until it's done.
So is cheating bad? I think you really need to think more about why, not what, you're doing to really answer that question. So now get going back to your games, and no cheating... unless it's the right thing to do!
No comments:
Post a Comment