CHEATER!!! - Totally 100% true stories of cheaters and the cheating they did in my gaming past
Lance
United States
Moorhead
Minnesota
The coolest best thing I have ever done in my life is being a father
Caleb, the best 6 month old little brother ever
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I thought of this list as a good "brother" to my earlier list, Totally 100% true stories from my gaming past where somebody got into a physical altercation or came very, very close which went over pretty well with the viewing public here on the geek. If you want to check that one out, you can find it here...
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/45932
Anyway, these are the stories that stick out in my head in which someone was caught cheating at some sort of game at some point in the last 30 or so odd years that I have been circling the sun.
Now I know some people feel very strongly about cheating, and I would never say it is ever a good idea to cheat, but these stories (well for the most part) are amusing, and after all was said and done, in pretty much every case, no one's feelings were hurt.
There is one glaring example however where this was not the case - I am sure you will be able to figure out which one that is.
So go ahead and read and enjoy, and try not to judge the people depicted too strongly, except for the people in that one story. They suck.
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Eirik Sandaas
Norway
Trondheim
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Not truly cheating, but a fun story from the prerelease marquee of the Supernova set.
This set was the last without character cards, so you only had the actual click to go by and this being a sealed prerelease all the pieces was mostly unknown. We played 300 points for the game as the store had only gotten one brick so it was just 2 packs pr player.
Well, one guy pulled a rookie Marvel boy, costing 53 points, and decided to play him. And he was really rocking, with his charge and super strenght, decent attack values and being a wild card to booth. Now, the guy made the final, and then someody decided to chech the numer on the dial vs the sculpt, and realized the click was a bastard. Wizkids had popped the dial of the experienced Guardian (cost: 110 points or thereabouts) on the Marvel Boy sculpt. No wonder he had made finals technically playing a 360 point team...
Now there is no way to prove the guy was aware of the fact that the model was a fault, but it is kinda strange to think he at least didn't wonder when he saw how good the dial was. To his credit, he removed the piece from his team from the final, and was just barely beaten.
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27.
Board Game: Chess
[Average Rating:7.10 Overall Rank:251]
Mark Beyak
United States
Santa Rosa
California
Combat Commander gets your blood flowing.
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I think I related this story here a while back. I'll do it again 'cause I still get a chuckle out of it.
I used to live on a commune back in the 80s and, well, there was more than a little weed smoked back then in that place. I enjoyed playing Chess there and had plenty of opponents. My very good friend Bill played frequently and he was always getting high regardless of whatever else he was doing.
So, we were playing Chess and somehow I had gotten my king into a compromised position, Bill said "check", (perhaps I had been partaking too, I don't remember). I moved my king and as usual kept my finger on the top of it as I looked around at the new position. "No", I said and put it back. Then I moved it to another square and kept my grip on it. I moved it back and forth between those two squares several times while Bill relit his pipe. From the second square I moved it to a third square and back and forth again then finally to a square four spaces away from the original position. "There, that's good!"
Bill looked over the board position and proceeded to make his next move. After he did, I couldn't hold back laughing any longer and I told him what I had done. I couldn't believe he didn't notice! We both had a good laugh and set the game up as it was with me making a legal move this time.
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Steve
United States
Edgerton
Wisconsin
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My wife kept telling me about my father-in-law's habit of cheating in every game he would play, with the exception of Battleship. At one family gathering, we decided to teach these people Spoons. After getting a couple of letters, GL got up for a nature break. To get to the bathroom and back, he had to pass through the kitchen. From my seat in the dining room, I was the only one who could see him go to the silverware drawer. A couple of hands later, everyone came up with a spoon - no odd man out. That is when I innocently asked why GL had a tea spoon, while everyone else had a table spoon. The whole family (verbally) jumped on him, while I could sit back and smile, not really getting his wrath for ratting him out. I actually like my in-laws, but you have to watch GL like a hawk if you invite him to play anything.
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29.
Board Game: UNO
[Average Rating:5.31 Overall Rank:7789]
Nate Walker
United States
North Andover
Massachusetts
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Red wine on breath? Check
Carhartt hat? Check
Sloppy hand of cards? Check
Flashing hand signal to confederate across the table? Check
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Mattias Matikainen
Sweden
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I remember a game of "Drakar och Demoner"(Swedish rpg) with a couple of my friends, I was a player and had two other players with me!
We roll our characters and one of the players witch we will call "Tom", decieds to play a duck thief(Yes, you could play as a duck... they look like donald duck..  )
Anyway, we look at each others characters(witch was okey at the time) and we all notice that Tom as no skill above 10(skill checks are made with a D20 and you get a success if you roll equall or lower than you skill)
We all think it's becuase its an average stat for skills and its very cheap, but still maybe he should have more on his thief skills.
So we start playing and everything seems going well, but for some reason Tom is having a grudge against me, stuffing my backpack with hay and that sort of thing, always succeding with his rolls so I could'nt stop him!
After two game sessions we sit down to talk about the game(Tom had all ready left), and someone brings up that Tom has never failed a single dice roll, ever!
Since he has 10 in alot of his skills he should have a 50% success rate, but so far we can't recall any dice rolled that has failed!
So on our third game session we keep an eye out on his rolls... success, success and a success again...
Tom goes to the toilet and the GM picks up the dice and rolls it a few times and says "success" everytime. I take a quick look on the dice and realize that I see two "10"s... It is a 20 sides dice witch only goes to 10!!
We stopped ourselves from smashing the door to the toilet open and instead replaced the dice with a normal D20 with the same color and sat down like nothing happened!
So he came back and we contiued playing and it was hard not to laugh at his expression then the first dice roll he makes since returning from the toilet fails!
His expression through out the rest of the game was priceless, and he could'nt complain, since he would be admiting that he had been cheating all time!
So at the end of the game, the GM picks up Tom D20 and asks "By the way, is this your dice Tom?"
He was so pale, and we all started laughing while he snatches the dice and runs of home!
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Well, what can I say. I was a Cylon from the start.
Our Battlestar games tend to run long and we usually have an intermission at the start of the "2nd half", after the last of the loyalty cards have been passed out. Everyone leaves to go to the bathroom or stretch their legs. Alone at the kitchen table, I ponder "What Would a Cylon Do?"
Yes. I walked around the table and looked at every single person's loyalty cards. I feel sick about it now and it wasn't even really worth it. It's like unwrapping all your Christmas presents in secret and then re-wrapping them to open "for real" later.
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Rene van Breugel
Netherlands
Noord Brabant
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When it is my turn, before picking a role, I now shuffle the role cards given to me. Here is why:
In a game the character I choose was the victim of the the Assassin.
But it was no luck or good guessing from the player who had the Assassin.
He watched very carefully what card (left/right/middle - that was enough information for him) I picked from those he gave to me, so he knew exactly what I picked.
How do you judge?
A. Unfair
B. My fault
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Martin Boisselle
Canada
Quebec
The end begins anew
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Second time I play with this guy.
First time was playing Heroscape; one of my friends, JM, had told me that he had changed his leader during the game, maybe even put a figurine back into play....
Maybe that was true, maybe not.
So he comes at one of our game nights and we play Yspahan.
During play, he says:
S: "... that's not the correct rule. Gold counts during the final tally of points: it's 2 points per gold."
Me: "You can read the rules: gold does not count."
S: "Well, that's not the way we played all of our games. In our other group, we always play like that."
Me: "You played with the wrong rules then."
S: "...grumble, I'm not going to win... grumble, grumble, grumble..."
We switch to Timmer's Trail.
Once his action is done, and after two other players have played their actions, he says:
S: "... well if I had known that you were gonna do that, I would've played differently. I want my move back!"
Me: "What?"
His cousin: "Stop being a p***k; do it next time"
S: "... grumble, grumble, grumble...."
Ok. He did not win Yspahan. But! He was the banker and he did finish with an enormous amount of gold coins (guess why he wanted each gold coin to be worth 2 points?)
All of his buildings were built.
And he had almost all the camels (yes, they were also in front of him)
As for Tinner's Trail, I don't remember if he won. But he complained all the long that if he had known, he would not have played that action and continued to ask to replay his action, even though one of even two other players had already played their turn!!!!
So after the last game, it's 11h30pm.
My friend, JM, says:
"Well I'm off. My girlfriend is waiting for me and I'm bushed! Ciao!"
Okay, something's wrong.
JM never leaves until at least 1h30am. Something's fishy...
My guests, including "S" decide that they will also leave.
So the next morning, I write to JM, asking what was wrong and why did he leave so early?
JM told me that during Yspahan, he saw "S" put extra cubes on his buildings, pick up more money then he should have and during Tinner's Trail, he thinks he saw him adding extra money on his behalf....
Ok. That guy is not coming back!!! BANNED!!!!
So, from that moment on, when we have game nights and someone eludes to someone cheating, we go:
"S! Ssssssssss!" (Imitate a serpent-like hiss à la Slytherin...)
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34.
Board Game: Euchre
[Average Rating:6.77 Overall Rank:755]
Flying Arrow
United States
Pennsylvania
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In some circles, cheating at Euchre is considered part of the game. If you can get away with it, you got away with it. The most common form of cheating is stealing the deal. The dealer should rotate from player to player, but if you just innocently start dealing and you manage to finish dealing and turn up the potential trump card with no one objecting, congratulations - you're the dealer. I think I've seen the same person repeatedly steal the deal 4 or 5 times in a row. The other team was obviously not paying much attention.
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Chris Hayward
United Kingdom
Bath
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I can't remember quite what game this was, it was a while ago, but the principle was this:
Each player draws a card and, without looking at it, places it in his headband so all other players can see it. Players then bid, Perudo style, on what they think the total of all cards in play is. Obviously, if you know what your own card is, you can calculate the total, and "guess" exactly right, making it impossible for you to lose.
My younger brother and I had been introduced to this game on the first day on a gaming weekend. Since we were sharing a room in the hotel, we developed a system of innocuous hand gestures with which we would tell each other what the other person's card was. Obviously, when we played the game again the next day, we were unbeatable. After a while, the people we were playing against started suspecting something, and watching us fairly closely to make sure we weren't peeking at our cards when we drew them. Obviously they didn't notice anything.
Surprisingly, they didn't even figure it out when it got down to just the two of us, and our amazing streaks at guessing the result suddenly stopped.
EDIT: Thanks to people who suggested what it might be; it was Pow Wow.
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Brandon Bernard
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
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If you've never met Willard, I can't explain him to you. (If you want me to try: He claims he's an atheist druid who is the reincarnation of Socrates, Joan of Arc, King Leonidas (who he never heard of before seeing "300"), and numerous other historical figures who stood up for their beliefs or fought with swords. He also claims he is physically incapable of speaking a lie despite being caught in them several times, he has a serious self-esteem problem, is socially awkward, is very closed minded, and isn't particaularly good at anything.)
Anyway, he wanted to play werewolf with our group one time, and not wanting to be rude, we let him. (Who knows why he wanted to play since it involved lying(he was a terrible wolf)). After several games of being a villager, we noticed Willard was 95% accurate when picking out wolves. Begginner's luck right?
Well, after a couple weeks, his ability to pick out wolves had not died down. Strange thing was though, he could only find wolves who were in front of him. Hmm. We decided it was time to test if he was peeking. One night, we had a villager make some "wolfish" motions during the night. Surely enough, Willard accused him during the following day. We are starting to get the picture here.
Finally, all observers starting watching him while he was "sleeping". His eyes were twitching (like he was trying hard to hide peeking), he giggled at goofy faces that someone made, and he flinched when he feigned hitting him.
He of course, says he would never cheat. (What a liar. I believe he was jsut trying to boost his esteem by being right all the time.) Anyway, the rest of us had plenty of evidence, but instead of asking him not to play anymore, the village simply lynched him first EVERY time. He decied not to play anymore.
(P.S.- What's the point of playing werewolf if you peek? If you peek, we will lynch you. Period.)
Edit: spelling.
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M@tthijs
Netherlands
NOT
Holland
Earn tons of geekgold:...
...go to VGG and add videogames to the database
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We played AD&D 2nd ed. I believe.
One player was an awful min-maxer. Anything for max XP, roleplay is optional. He was a dwarven fighter and as soon as something looked slighty hostile he would charge in, supposedly to guard our safety, but more likely to get max XP.
What's bad is we caught him cheating. We would roll to hit and he would roll like really close to his body, study his roll and when it was too bad he would turn it over to a '20', when he thought we didn't notice.
So why didn't we confront him? Maybe we were too young and too embarrased. I mean, come on, cheating in a RPG game! You can't even win! So eventually everybody knew, including the DM, but he didn't know we did. With a simple *wink wink notch notch* we alerted each other and the DM would just chalk up some extra minus XP. He killed the monsters for the good of the party, but to the deterioration of his character's XP. And we? We disliked his behaviour (both the minmaxing and the occassional cheating) so we started to treat him accordingly. Also this got worse as time passed by, and it almost became common practice that, whenever he charged into the enemies (without common agreement, and esp. with cheating to hit rolls), the wizard would cast a fireball at the ensuing melee. This would normally kill the enemies and let him (barely) live, but everytime he had to roll saving throws for his entire equipment - much to our pleasure. And when he was killed, we would take whatever molten gold we could find on him and let him be resurrected (with another -1 stat). Of course the friendly fire pissed him off greatly, but we told him to 'be a grown man and start behaving like one' (like we did - huhhum). He never quit minmaxing, nor cheating and eventually the campaign died out. But we still remember fondly the small, almost always beardless, black charred fireball magnet we campaigned with.
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38.
Board Game: Risk
[Average Rating:5.62 Overall Rank:6468]
Jeff S
United States
New York
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I wasn't playing the game at the time, but I was watching and was the one who called the player out on cheating.
Mid-90's and working second shift at an Italian Air Force base. We had a little break room constructed inside a hangar with a couple couches, a TV, and a table. There was nothing to do while the planes were in the air, so 4 people were playing Risk. I watch them off and on and I notice one guy keeps glancing at something in his hand under the table.
Turns out he had a crib sheet on territories to pick during setup and take during the game! Not a really bad cheat, but it was still shady. No one was really taking the game serious though, so I remember everyone mostly laughing about it.
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David Mitchell
United States
Elk Grove
CA
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Many years ago I used to drive to Oakland from Sacramento every other month for a game day at a store. My second trip I arrived early with my daughter (14) and there was one other person waiting. We introduced ourselves and he then followed me around the store as I was looking at games, telling me how bad each game I picked up was. About 10 minuets after the opening of the store another gentleman showed up with about four containers of games. This guy talked games as an expert. He knew everything as did the first gentleman. The 3 of us started playing Carcassonne at a table with the Game Expert sitting across from the Game Hater and myself. It was the Game Experts game and he had all the tiles in a bag. When it was his turn he would put the bag lower then the table and pull out a tile while looking up. Obviously he was not cheating but he beat the Game Hater and I quite handily.
After the game my daughter asked if I could look at a game in the front of the store. Once we were out of earshot she told me that the Game Expert was lining up tiles on his leg. Before or instead of pulling a tile out of the bag he had already chosen the tile on his leg to play.
I managed to not play with either fellow again.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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Probaly my worst-case-scenario of cheating and one that cost me quite a bit in the end.
Id been playing DS at cons since the game came out and was at the time well into an expensive project with BDP to fund a new set of cards which I was paying *extra* to make sure were "guild safe"...
"Guild?" you might ask? It was an RPGA type set up to organize and collaborate players at conventions. Started off ok. But by the time of the following incident things were starting already to take the same bad turns the RPGA had tread. It would get much worse in the following years.
So Im at GenCon and playing in one of the games hosted by the head of the Guild and his right-hand-man. All seems to be going well for the most part until about midway in my character is mysteriously seperated from the rest of the group he was with a mere sentance prior. And then immediately set upon by a pack of one corrupted drakkel, one of the tougher beasts in the game even when not corrupted. Needless to say I was getting torn to pieces alone while some of the group protested this and scrambled to figure out where I was and get there ASAP!
Meanwhile the GM/Guild head and his flunky were exchanging sly looks.
I put up a good fight. But eventually get dragged down - and this is a game short on recover from dead type effects at the time. And if my character was killed then you could bet that sure enough there would be a Maelstrom in the Astral plain that just somehow I wouldn't be able to escape and not only would I be dead, (But at least a helpfull honoured spirit) I'd be obliterated. Erased.
Luckily some of the players made it there just in time and drove off the drakkels and applied a few healing potions. The rest of the adventure was a brief series of getting actions ignored or conveniently misinterpeted or just flat out denied. We got to the objective but didn't get to make a decisive outcome. But its Dragon Storm and you kinda expect that sort of outcome now and then at least.
I and two other players who witnessed this files a complaint with BDP at the con and they said they'd look into it.
Instead, about a month later the Guild announces all such "test" cards as banned. And later one of the BDP staff announces on the public forums that I'm being "investigated for suspicious behavior." I kid you not.
I go to Susan about this and am told that "They cant do anything about the Guild. The Guild makes the rules." Um excuse me? The company makes the rules. Not the fans. Needless to say I closed down the projects in progress. In the end this cost me quite a bit in investment, now useless cards for an incomplete set. One batch of which I never got the finished cards for by the way.
A group of people interested in the game and willing to drop the required 1-2k in commissions to help BDP heard of this from me and those who'd been there and perhaps wisely decided not to tunnel money into a game where they were banned right out the gate or banned till set completion.
The Guild since then slowly strangled the life out of the game. More stringent rules against certain cards, steeper advancement curves and a EP limit after which your character was forced to either retire or was, yes, say it with me now... banned from play.
I ended up picking up batches of cards from players who were getting fed up with it all and just quitting.
Its a great game. But the whole Guild incident just murdered any interest I have for likely ever playing again.
On a bemusingly sad note. Sometime after my original review of Dragon Storm and listing off the troubles. The Guild leader has "retired" and most of the bans and edicts have been conveniently listed. Gee, what a co-incidence... It only took a decade!
argh.. and argh again.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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This is one of those vexing moments where you KNOW someone is cheating. But you dont know HOW they are cheating.
At I believe GenCon 98 or 99 during the Greysea era of Lost Worlds was playing at the Greysea sponsored tournament and encounter a player using a "Wraith with Sickle". I was playing "Unicorn" and lost every time within usually 2-3 moves. And it wasn't just me.
Never did figure out what exactly he was pulling off. But I suspect he was in part taking advantage of players un-familliar with some special rule concerning the Wraith. I don't recall him ever sacrificeing health to remain material after a hit. Something I didn't know about till later when picked up the Wraith book.
Eventually there was a rematch and things went verrrrrrry diffrently. Suffice to say he did not take this very well at all. heh-heh-heh.
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Go somewhere else!! We are very competitive when we want to...but we want HEALTHY competition. We want to have fun and be able to talk about the moves and the game. Not be bother with someone with not enough self esteem to play without cheating.
Dayton
Ohio
I have zero tolerance on this policy.
That said, I can understand (but will not abide) the motivation behind cheating in a poker game when money is on the line. But how childish to cheat at a friendly boardgame with no money involved!
I have zero tolerance on this policy.
That said, I can understand (but will not abide) the motivation behind cheating in a poker game when money is on the line. But how childish to cheat at a friendly boardgame with no money involved!
So you can understand greed, but not pride?
Some people just play games to win, that being the sole motivation..
Trick is to avoid those people or play coop games.
Interestingly, winning through cheating goes completely against my pride, if I can't win on an even ground, victory is meaningless, at least for me, and that's the only opinion worth considering.
San Diego
California
It could conceivably mean that they were fighting with foam swords.
I used to boff in that context in high school on a semi-regular basis. On occasion it would lead to some interesting misunderstandings.
Me: "Yeah, I'm pretty tired. I've been boffing with Owen and Josh outside the dorm all afternoon."
Non-gamer:
Me:
This isn't an "also means" but it's actually the same word. "Boffing" means whacking. If you say that you were "pounding the neighbor's wife," it means you were pounding her, it's just the "with what?" that we don't know.
Sacramento
California
Remember - the DM ALLOWED you to rape her, because there's a hell of a lot of ways the gal could ensure the others (especially a paladin) would wake up (unless you somehow managed a silence spell to cover the deed).
About the sorcerer - yeah, anyone using player knowledge in-character bugs the crap out of me - of course, if you played your halfling as being as devious as you would be in staging and executing the rape, you are using player knowledge as well.
Your halfling you described probably would have been careless about the crime, since his mind was more interested in violence than being stealthy.
Rape is a known RPG taboo for many good reasons.