Cheating in D&D is not spoken about much but I think it is fair to say we have all cheated at some point. Most experience players will not do the blatant cheating of adding magic items to their character sheet or sticking 0’s on the end of their GP total. However there are more subtle ways to cheat.
1. GM Missed the Roll
In a busy combat, the player rolls their to-hit die, getting a bad result but the GM was distracted by another player and hasn’t noticed. The player simply picks the die up again and waits for the GM to ask them to roll. This form of cheating is most common in large groups where it is easy to get away with but other players may notice what the GM doesn’t.
2. The Sin of Omission
In a tight situation? Need every bonus you can find? Then simply forget about the negatives. It is easy for a player to “accidently” forget that they are encumbered, still dazed from the last spell or that the target is at long range. Of course, the GM or another player might annoyingly remind you but if you have a reputation for honesty at the game table, no one will thinking you are cheating. Just that you forget things in the heat-of-the-moment.
3. Baffle them with Bullsh*t
In a game like D&D with lots of expansion books, this way of cheating is easy but requires preparation. Use as many obscure options from every add-on you can find in your character. Then when the GM challenges your 1st level character having +27 to hit, reel off all the bonus, explaining where you got them from. In a busy game, the GM is not going to be able to check-up on everything you’ve said. So they will never notice that the small print in rules specifically stops that combination of bonuses and if they do, you can claim you didn’t notice it.
4. Unreadable Dice
Picking your lucky D&D dice might also mean picking your most unreadable dice. The ones where all the paint has come out of the numbers and each roll involves several seconds of squinting to workout the result. For players sitting at the other end of the table to the GM or if the GM has poor eye-sight, this is a license to cheat.
Image Credit – Playing with Dice by Jasper Nance – CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0