Author Topic: Cheating and Munchkins  (Read 25234 times)

Offline Shadowknight12

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Cheating and Munchkins
« on: November 17, 2012, 01:44:37 AM »
As Arturick rightfully pointed out, I was getting off-topic in another thread, so I decided to move the conversation here.

I don't really share the idea that cheating is bad. The only part of cheating that is bad is betraying the trust that someone else has placed on you (in this case, the trust that you'll play by the rules). If that aspect of cheating is removed, then there's nothing wrong with cheating. For example, everyone at the table might agree to break this or that rule, or to let Bob individually break that other rule because he hates it and nobody else really cares. I know I don't really care if a player says "hey, mind if we do away with grapple rules? I hate those" or "Hey, mind if I add a +2 to Dex to my character so I can qualify for TWF? I can't really make my build work otherwise" or even "Hey, can I get Lightning Bolt as a spell-like ability X/day?" because, really, if nobody else at the table has a problem with it (and in most cases, why should they?), then cheating is perfectly fine.

The rules exist to serve the people at the table, not the other way around.

Blasphemy!

I know, I know: what was I thinking...

That is houseruling, not cheating. Remember, very specific terms. If everybody agrees that a certain rule works differently, that is a house rule. If one player lies about what the rules say so he can gain an advantage, that is being a munchkin. Not the same thing.

I guess at the end of the day I'm not that worked up about full-on cheating either. It really depends on what the player cheated about and what actual harm it did.

And really, with this "very specific terms" brou-haha, what happens if the player cheats, I as the DM find out about it and I'm cool with it? Does the player suddenly stop being a munchkin because it's no longer cheating but houseruling?

Not to disparage the local lingo, but it all sounds like overreaction to me.

The definition of Munchkin is cheater and asshole, so it's obviously a negative term on this boards. Cheating is already very asshole-ish, but if for some weird reason you're totally okay with it then no, technically you don't have to call that player a munchkin if he wasn't an asshole cheater. OTOH, if he wasn't an asshole but you simply retconed his cheating as a houserule, then yes, he was still a munchkin.

But if I retconned his cheating as a houserule, it's no longer a problem. So he's still a munchkin, which is a negative term, even if he's not causing problems any longer?

If you as a DM make a ruling it becomes the rule from that point forward. The player is still a munchkin, because he already demonstrated that he is willing to break the rules to "win" the game. To stop being a munchkin is not to change the rules but to change the interaction, namely, to apologise and from then on following the rules and, if one wants the rules to work differently, bringing it up with the group first.

While to you the reaction to cheating sounds like overreaction, to others your reaction to their reaction sounds like overreaction. Seriously, people have every right to expect people to play fair. Its a matter of trust, which you already mentioned. Right now, you're doing exactly what you're accusing others of doing: namely, not being okay with the fact that other people play games differently from you. That other people expect their group not to cheat.

Cheating is always wrong by your own definition, incidentally. Accepting other play styles by necessity means conforming to their rules while you're at their table. Otherwise, you're not really accepting it at all.

Well, I fail to see where I'm not accepting other people's playstyles, the only value judgement I made was "sounds like overreaction" which is still a far cry from "There are no good X type of players" and "X type of player is an asshole" and other similar disparaging remarks. So while you do have a point that I could've phrased my earlier remark better, it's still not as bad as the attitude I was commenting on earlier.

I am accepting of people who scorn at munchkins (otherwise I'd have said something along the lines of "That's unacceptable"), I'm merely genuinely puzzled as to why it's a big deal, where's the necessity to bear such outward scorn and how does the logic behind the very specific terms work, that's all.

So, to sum up:

I don't really mind if you think cheaters and munchkins are the worst sort of people ever, but it still puzzles me. Personally, I think it's a result of gender socialisation and how men in a male-dominated game tend to snap into Competitive Mode (which is why cheating is such a big deal), but I think that's a controversial subject that few would agree with. Still, that's my theory.

Now let's hear everyone else's.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2012, 01:57:04 AM »
Quote
I don't really mind if you think cheaters and munchkins are the worst sort of people ever, but it still puzzles me.
Well, I can't really help that. And to be honest, I don't really care. I just pointed out that Captnq used the wrong term, is all.
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Offline Shadowknight12

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2012, 01:59:18 AM »
Quote
So he's still a munchkin, which is a negative term, even if he's not causing problems any longer?
He did it once, he can do it again.

So, basically, "once a cheater, always a cheater"?

Quote
I don't really mind if you think cheaters and munchkins are the worst sort of people ever, but it still puzzles me.
Well, I can't really help that. And to be honest, I don't really care. I just pointed out that Captnq used the wrong term, is all.

Ah, gotcha.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2012, 02:16:21 AM »
Note the word "can".
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Offline Demelain

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2012, 03:12:44 AM »
I'm catching the tail end here, so forgive me if I'm misunderstanding something.

I am at what I expect to be a fun, social gathering with friends. I, my fellow players, and the DM have invested a significant amount of time in building characters, NPCs, monsters, and challenges which fall within a predefined ruleset, agreed upon as a group.
What the "cheater" has done is taken the agreed conditions and altered them, without informing anyone. He has changed the game for personal benefit without consideration for the rest of the group. It is disrespectful. Had he asked, he would likely have found that the group was open to those alterations to begin with - but he didn't.
It's the difference between asking your friend if you can borrow twenty dollars, and just opening his wallet and taking his money. He might have lent you the money anyway, but you didn't even stop to ask.

Offline Shadowknight12

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2012, 03:24:12 AM »
I don't disagree, but what I don't quite understand is the preemptive level of hatred/anger levied at this hypothetical cheater/munchkin. Perhaps it might be a case of differences in life philosophies. To me, the level of anger should be proportional to the damage caused. If everyone discovers the cheating and no harm was caused, then it seems utterly puzzling to me to react angrily to a victimless crime. It makes me confused.

This confused:


Offline Demelain

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2012, 03:39:22 AM »
Adorably confused?

I'm not sure about preemptive hate, but even if no one was really adversely impacted (though I can think of few situations where it didn't somehow hurt someone) it nonetheless implies that the cheater doesn't trust his group with the knowledge of what he's doing, or general disrespect for his group because he thinks he can change the rules to suit him without consideration for anyone else.
However I look at it, there are no positive sides to cheating - but there are always negatives.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2012, 03:47:26 AM »
I'm not sure what hate/anger you are talking about, Shadowknight.
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Offline Shadowknight12

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2012, 04:30:53 AM »
Adorably confused?

Yes. 'Tis a curse.

Quote
I'm not sure about preemptive hate, but even if no one was really adversely impacted (though I can think of few situations where it didn't somehow hurt someone) it nonetheless implies that the cheater doesn't trust his group with the knowledge of what he's doing, or general disrespect for his group because he thinks he can change the rules to suit him without consideration for anyone else.
However I look at it, there are no positive sides to cheating - but there are always negatives.

Well, I can easily imagine a situation where nobody's adversely affected by one character cheating. Take the following party:

A) Alice, playing a Commoner because she liked the idea of playing a literal farmer's child who becomes "the chosen one." She has no qualms in being absolutely useless at everything ever and surviving on Plot Armour and DM Fiat, because she finds that perfectly realistic for someone who only knows how to till soil and harvest wheat. Plus, Plot Armour and Author Fiat are exactly the reasons said farmer's children survive in the stories she seeks to emulate.
B) Bob, playing a bard who is more or less useless in combat and is instead in it for the RPing.
C) Charlie, playing a rogue who is more or less useless in combat and is instead in it for the traps and stealth.
D) Dave, who cheated himself a character that wipes the floor with every single foe that the DM throws at the party.

Now, it's revealed that Dave has cheated heavily. He has harmed nobody, because nobody cares that he's so good at combat when they are instead focused on different aspects of the game.

Possible additions to the party, so that you can see that you can see that the specific party setup varies:

E) Elise, the healbot cleric.
F) Frank, the "friend of all living things" druid or ranger.
G) Gina, the wise old mentor who accompanies the party but does effectively nothing.
H) Holly, the plucky child who can't contribute in combat but is plot-relevant or gets the party in constant trouble.
I) Ivan, the useless dude in distress. A favourite target of kidnapping, he frequently gets a case of the vapours, too.
J) Jake, the trapsmith/craftsman/magic items creator/scroll scribe/etc, who does nothing in combat but shines during downtime.

And I'm sure I can keep the list going by borrowing character tropes from fiction that are useless in combat but still contribute to the overall story. In these cases, one character cheating at the area they excel at but nobody else cares about (like combat), harms nobody in particular.

In fact, I'd say that the reason cheating is viewed in such a bad light is because there's the implicit assumption that everyone is trying to be good at combat in a competitive environment, and cheating is putting one player unfairly ahead of the others. And I remark "in a competitive environment" because, again, if everyone was optimising to be moderately good at combat in a non-competitive environment, one character cheating to be way ahead of the others wouldn't harm anybody. After all, if it isn't a competition, who cares if Dave cheats to get himself as far ahead as possible? Everyone else fulfilled their personal goal, which was "to be sufficiently competent in combat" and Dave did nothing to hamper that.

I'm not sure what hate/anger you are talking about, Shadowknight.

Well, for what I've read, there's a general "cheaters are assholes" and "there are no good munchkins" and an overall sense of anger towards people who do this. I wouldn't call it rage, of course, I am not suggesting anyone here's frothing at the mouth or vociferating, but I do think that the general sentiment is somewhat negative.

Again, I don't have a problem with it, I'm merely confused as to what's the rationale behind it.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2012, 07:43:51 AM »
Explaining the level of vitiriol on these boards towards munchkins is relatively simple (though it is in two parts):

1) Members of this board have put significant amount of time and energy acquiring system mastery of this game we all play (or at least talk about).  A munchkin makes that system mastery useless/obsolete by ignoring the rules.  It's why many optimizers hate having major houserules changed after game start, since they might invalidate or degrade choices that they made previously.  A munchkin basically says "you know all those rules & options that you know about?  F that."

2) Munchkins are part of the reason why min/maxing is such a derogatory term around lots of gaming tables.  Non-optimizers get pissed at cheaters and then take it out on optimizers, who get grouped together.

So it's part frustration, part righteous indignation.  This may help.
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Offline Yirrare

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2012, 08:24:26 AM »
[...]
It's the difference between asking your friend if you can borrow twenty dollars, and just opening his wallet and taking his money. He might have lent you the money anyway, but you didn't even stop to ask.
This is a very good summary of my opinion aswell. It is similar on so many levels.

As for the damage caused, the in-game effect might be small. But me knowing that a fellow player will break rules as he sees fit is the bigger damage. It's damage to my trust for my fellow players. And without trust, I will not enjoy playing with them.
Again, the example from Demelain works here aswell. I would probably have lent my friend $20 (and even if he stole it, $20 is just $20 in the long run), but that he takes them without asking would likely damage my trust for him.

Best Regards
Yirrare

Offline Arturick

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2012, 11:43:36 AM »
Much of what I would have said has been said.  I generally agree that optimizers take a particularly dim view of cheaters/munchkins because they represent an approach to the game that invalidates not just a skill set, but one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game.  They also represent something of a spit in the eye for those of us who spent a grand on gaming books.  Why look over the books when you can just add numbers to your sheet and make crap up?

Also, the internet lends itself to hyperbole.  So it's not like we place munchkins and child molesters on the same moral plane, but the language of the internet does not deal well in gradations of scorn.

As for people who honestly don't care if someone at their table always crits, has a million hit points, and teabags dragons to death...  They don't deserve to burn in hell for their crimes, but they don't sound like people I would enjoy gaming with.  While, in theory, we don't need to expend vitriol towards such people, their existence is frustrating for anyone like myself who is actively looking for players/DMs.

Imagine if you went to the store and saw a rack of containers all marked "Chocolate Pudding."   You say to yourself, "Hey!  I love chocolate pudding!"  So, you buy a few containers, crack one open, eat a big spoonful and...  It's strawberry flavored.  You hate strawberry.  Your next container is vanilla, which is okay, but you prefer chocolate.  The containers continue to have random flavors, but are all marked "chocolate."

Likewise, a group saying that they are looking for a 3.5 player could get a cheater, an optimizer, and a rules illiterate roleplayer.  I really prefer to play with only one flavor of gamer, but they all come in the same container.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2012, 01:02:03 PM »
Not paying any attention to the above because words are words.

Words are used to communicate intent, by global opinion the term munchkin is used to label a greedy asshole of a person who is NOT a team player and disrupts organized play, atypically by using rules abuse and shanking other players in their sleep.

To say you think cheating is totally cool if the group says its fine is a failure to understand terms used by the board (see 'house rule'), which in is turn a personal failure to properly express your self to your intended audience.

Them meshing that failure with "munchkin equals good" as a poor excuse to save face rather than admitting you were wrong on something as trivial as terminology? Holy frackin Pelor, someone get me a rusty spork and lets get this crap over with before it becomes it's own thread...

Son of a...

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2012, 01:19:39 PM »
I completely agree with SirPercival and Arturick.  And, they have explained why coming on these boards and saying "cheating = no harm, no foul" will lead to torches and pitchforks.

@Shadowknight
To say that Dave cheating in an area that no one cares about -- combat, which is also let's be clear, batshit insane given that combat is such a huge part of this game, seriously, if you don't want combat, play something else -- and therefore is fine is a mistake. 

Cheating invalidates other character's decisions.  Bob's decision to not be good in combat but shine in other areas is invalidated by Dave ignoring the rules/stuff on his character sheet.  And, 90% of the characters you've listed just aren't PCs.  Jake isn't a PC.  There's no reason for him to trundle along with the party.  He's that guy back in camp you buy things from. 

Nothing I have said has anything to do with your (to my thinking bizarre) assumption that we're all being competitive. 

Frankly, I think your arguments for why "cheating might be fine" are shoddy.  Given the description you propose, you might as well throw the rules out the window.  And, as I indicated earlier, what you have described is a party where exactly 1 person actually participates in combat encounters.  How could that possibly be good thing?  Who would run a game where for hours on end 3/4s of the players essentially sit around and do nothing?  Who would want to play in such a game? 

And, as a side note, I've helped make or play version of Alice, Gina, Frank, Holly, and Jake.  They were not "useless in combat" for reasons stated above.  But, they all used mechanics to realize these things.  Alice's "chosen one" nature was reflected through mutably-fluffed mechanics.  Not through constant DM fiat. 
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 01:21:45 PM by Unbeliever »

Offline Concerned Ninja Citizen

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2012, 01:46:55 PM »
Quote from: Shadowknight12
The only part of cheating that is bad is betraying the trust that someone else has placed on you (in this case, the trust that you'll play by the rules).

This is the first thing you said on this subject and, so far, everyone agrees with it.

The rest of this discussion is quibbling over wording with a side of you contradicting yourself.

For example:

Quote from: Shadowknight12
D) Dave, who cheated himself a character that wipes the floor with every single foe that the DM throws at the party.

Now, it's revealed that Dave has cheated heavily. He has harmed nobody, because nobody cares that he's so good at combat when they are instead focused on different aspects of the game.

Your first sentence covers why Dave has, in fact, harmed someone. He agreed to play a game with rules and then ignored those rules, betraying that trust. It doesn't matter whether he would have been allowed to break those rules if he'd asked first because he didn't ask first.

Now that's not saying that Dave should be strung up by his thumbs for this, necessarily, but it is unambiguously a bad thing and it seems that even you agree with this so I'm not sure why we're still having this conversation.

Offline Arturick

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2012, 02:25:32 PM »
Words are used to communicate intent, by global opinion the term munchkin is used to label a greedy asshole of a person who is NOT a team player and disrupts organized play, atypically by using rules abuse and shanking other players in their sleep.

I would say you are wrong about the "global opinion" part.  There are internet communities where "munchkin" gets slapped on anyone who makes mechanically beneficial choices for their character, and I'm only exaggerating a little bit.  I've seen Clerics with a focus other than healing labelled munchkinism worthy of physical violence.

That said, it does seem to be generally accepted around here that "munchkin" = "shithead" for all intents and purposes, but the optimizer = munchkin philosophy is still loud and proud in certain corners.

Offline Shadowknight12

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2012, 03:56:27 PM »
Explaining the level of vitiriol on these boards towards munchkins is relatively simple (though it is in two parts):

1) Members of this board have put significant amount of time and energy acquiring system mastery of this game we all play (or at least talk about).  A munchkin makes that system mastery useless/obsolete by ignoring the rules.  It's why many optimizers hate having major houserules changed after game start, since they might invalidate or degrade choices that they made previously.  A munchkin basically says "you know all those rules & options that you know about?  F that."

2) Munchkins are part of the reason why min/maxing is such a derogatory term around lots of gaming tables.  Non-optimizers get pissed at cheaters and then take it out on optimizers, who get grouped together.

So it's part frustration, part righteous indignation.  This may help.

I think you have a great point about how cheating renders system mastery invalid, and I can sympathise with that, but it still supports my earlier assertion about the competitive environment. After all, it's like someone who cheats their way through college. You could argue it's unfair for those who do study and take the tests fairly, but what reason is there to feel upset if it isn't because of an implicit competition in regards to academic performance?

Your second half is probably the one with the most weight, since I fully understand it and I honestly cannot criticise it. However, we don't really know the personal circumstances of that myriad of groups. What if there's a group where the DM has so much system mastery or abuses DM Fiat that the only way to keep playing is to outright cheat? What if there's a group where everyone has system mastery and the lone person that doesn't feels like they have to cheat to keep up with everyone else? What if the reasons for cheating come from outside the game? Obviously, all these questions have easy, standard answers. "Don't bring your personal issues to the table, it's always better to work hard to earn your system mastery than to cheat, if you aren't having a good time and you feel like you have to cheat then you shouldn't play in a game where the DM is out to kill you and make you suffer." All these are perfect ideal answers, but we're not perfect ideal people. We all make less than optimal decisions, particularly in the spur of the moment, and it's frighteningly easy for an honest min-maxer to cross the line and become a munchkin if the conditions are right.

While it's true that munchkins can give min-maxers a bad name, it's also true that any of us can become a munchkin if the right conditions are met.

This is a very good summary of my opinion aswell. It is similar on so many levels.

As for the damage caused, the in-game effect might be small. But me knowing that a fellow player will break rules as he sees fit is the bigger damage. It's damage to my trust for my fellow players. And without trust, I will not enjoy playing with them.
Again, the example from Demelain works here aswell. I would probably have lent my friend $20 (and even if he stole it, $20 is just $20 in the long run), but that he takes them without asking would likely damage my trust for him.

Best Regards
Yirrare

Yes, but A) cheating on a game isn't the same as taking money from your wallet. The spirit of the betrayal might be the same, but the damages caused are completely different. And B) don't you think that having scorn/distaste for someone you'd never play with further fractures our subculture? After all, if you know you'd never play with someone like that, so what's the point in preemptively holding them in a negative view? I know there are a lot of types of players I'd personally would never play with, but that doesn't mean I hold them in a negative light, precisely because I know they'll never adversely affect my own games.

Much of what I would have said has been said.  I generally agree that optimizers take a particularly dim view of cheaters/munchkins because they represent an approach to the game that invalidates not just a skill set, but one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game.  They also represent something of a spit in the eye for those of us who spent a grand on gaming books.  Why look over the books when you can just add numbers to your sheet and make crap up?

Also, the internet lends itself to hyperbole.  So it's not like we place munchkins and child molesters on the same moral plane, but the language of the internet does not deal well in gradations of scorn.

As for people who honestly don't care if someone at their table always crits, has a million hit points, and teabags dragons to death...  They don't deserve to burn in hell for their crimes, but they don't sound like people I would enjoy gaming with.  While, in theory, we don't need to expend vitriol towards such people, their existence is frustrating for anyone like myself who is actively looking for players/DMs.

Imagine if you went to the store and saw a rack of containers all marked "Chocolate Pudding."   You say to yourself, "Hey!  I love chocolate pudding!"  So, you buy a few containers, crack one open, eat a big spoonful and...  It's strawberry flavored.  You hate strawberry.  Your next container is vanilla, which is okay, but you prefer chocolate.  The containers continue to have random flavors, but are all marked "chocolate."

Likewise, a group saying that they are looking for a 3.5 player could get a cheater, an optimizer, and a rules illiterate roleplayer.  I really prefer to play with only one flavor of gamer, but they all come in the same container.

That's a very interesting take, and I can definitely sympathise with that, but it seems like people who want to play with X kind of gamer can easily just advertise the kind of gamer they want and wait for the right people to find them. After all, our hobby is growing, so it's only a matter of time before we all find like-minded people.

@Shadowknight
To say that Dave cheating in an area that no one cares about -- combat, which is also let's be clear, batshit insane given that combat is such a huge part of this game, seriously, if you don't want combat, play something else -- and therefore is fine is a mistake. 

Cheating invalidates other character's decisions.  Bob's decision to not be good in combat but shine in other areas is invalidated by Dave ignoring the rules/stuff on his character sheet.  And, 90% of the characters you've listed just aren't PCs.  Jake isn't a PC.  There's no reason for him to trundle along with the party.  He's that guy back in camp you buy things from. 

Nothing I have said has anything to do with your (to my thinking bizarre) assumption that we're all being competitive. 

Frankly, I think your arguments for why "cheating might be fine" are shoddy.  Given the description you propose, you might as well throw the rules out the window.  And, as I indicated earlier, what you have described is a party where exactly 1 person actually participates in combat encounters.  How could that possibly be good thing?  Who would run a game where for hours on end 3/4s of the players essentially sit around and do nothing?  Who would want to play in such a game? 

And, as a side note, I've helped make or play version of Alice, Gina, Frank, Holly, and Jake.  They were not "useless in combat" for reasons stated above.  But, they all used mechanics to realize these things.  Alice's "chosen one" nature was reflected through mutably-fluffed mechanics.  Not through constant DM fiat. 

Yeah, I had a similar argument in other forums regarding the whole "If you aren't playing D&D the way we play D&D, you ought to play something else" thing. The thread went on pages and pages and I'm still completely unconvinced. I have every right to play D&D any way I see fit, and if I want to play a character that is completely useless in combat (or run a game that is less than 10% combat), I have every right to do so and that doesn't make me any less of a D&D player. Trust me, nobody's going to move me from that position. It's better to just take a deep breath and accept that there are people out there who play the same game in completely different ways and that's okay:)

Here's a puppy to show you how okay it is:

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So yeah, I can totally see where you're coming from, but the underlying assumptions you're making is that A) Everyone must be good or decent at combat, B) Combat must be a big part of the game (3/4ths to be exact), C) Everyone must play by the rules (and the rules are sacred, unless modified by the game's arbiter), D) People who deviate from the median/average combat proficiency set by the group (those who cheat to get ahead or those who don't fit the minimum standards) are to be corrected or removed.

Surely you see where I'm getting the "competitive environment" from, don't you? Every player must be in roughly the same level of proficiency, the players must spend most of the game doing a single activity, which is heavily regulated by rules and calculations, and any attempts to deviate from this model must be corrected. We could replace D&D with any other sort of competitive sport or game and the same principles would apply.

Now granted, I'm not saying that the competition must be adversary (as there are many different types of competition). It can easy be cooperative competition, where everyone competes towards the same goal (defeating an encounter). This is the type of competition that you can find in WoW raids, for example, or when players group into teams in games like LoL or any co-op shooter. In this type of competitive environment, players are expected to meet a certain degree of system mastery, from having the right gear to knowing how to use their abilities to being the right class. There IS competition in these games, of that you can be sure. It's not adversary competition (except in things like PvP), but there's still a pressure for players to compete in order to achieve an agreed-upon standard of system mastery.

Your first sentence covers why Dave has, in fact, harmed someone. He agreed to play a game with rules and then ignored those rules, betraying that trust. It doesn't matter whether he would have been allowed to break those rules if he'd asked first because he didn't ask first.

Now that's not saying that Dave should be strung up by his thumbs for this, necessarily, but it is unambiguously a bad thing and it seems that even you agree with this so I'm not sure why we're still having this conversation.

I fail to see how that's a contradiction, since you're making assumptions here (that betraying the rules is by its very nature a harm upon... who? the DM? fellow players? everyone at the table?) that I don't share. That's why we're having this conversation, because A) There are things that puzzle me, and B) Every community can benefit from discussing things they often do or say without questioning. It's called introspection, and it's usually considered a good thing.  :P

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2012, 04:04:20 PM »
People don't like liars. It's as simple as that. It's basic human psychology. You're asking the wrong questions. It has nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with psychology/sociology.

Now, I had a friend we used to game with who was totally a cheater and a munchkin, and we all kind of tolerated it (and often ignored it, if it didn't really adversely affect the game), because we thought he was too incompetent to really be dangerous. :P
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Offline Shadowknight12

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #18 on: November 17, 2012, 04:10:56 PM »
People don't like liars. It's as simple as that. It's basic human psychology. You're asking the wrong questions. It has nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with psychology/sociology.

Now, I had a friend we used to game with who was totally a cheater and a munchkin, and we all kind of tolerated it (and often ignored it, if it didn't really adversely affect the game), because we thought he was too incompetent to really be dangerous. :P

I'm pretty sure it's a cultural thing. Where I'm from, the national card games are based on lying and cheating. And as a nation, we take pride in being liars and cheaters (the suave kind, though). To me, getting upset at someone cheating on a harmless game is... something that doesn't compute at all.

EDIT: I feel like I should add that I myself never saw the appeal of lying/cheating (I've been told I have 'foreigner sensibilities' whatever that means), lest I invoke the wrath of the boards. But again, just because I don't do something doesn't mean I disapprove of someone who does.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 04:12:57 PM by Shadowknight12 »

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Cheating and Munchkins
« Reply #19 on: November 17, 2012, 04:12:26 PM »
People don't like liars. It's as simple as that. It's basic human psychology. You're asking the wrong questions. It has nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with psychology/sociology.

Now, I had a friend we used to game with who was totally a cheater and a munchkin, and we all kind of tolerated it (and often ignored it, if it didn't really adversely affect the game), because we thought he was too incompetent to really be dangerous. :P

I'm pretty sure it's a cultural thing. Where I'm from, the national card games are based on lying and cheating. And as a nation, we take pride in being liars and cheaters (the suave kind, though). To me, getting upset at someone cheating on a harmless game is... something that doesn't compute at all for me.
You could very well be right.
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.