"Cheating - A Hobby Problem?" Topic

In your experience, how much of a problem is cheating in miniature wargaming?

* major problem
* minor problem
* rare problem
* never met a cheater

rare.

Being a mostly solo gamer, I would have to say major problem

One gross case in 40 years of gaming. So, rare

Never had an issue except with Waco Joe….

I've known 3 definite cheaters in the last 30ish years, and met a few who I suspected were cheating. The confirmed cheats were generally terrible players but nice guys, so they still usually lost and the rest of us tolerated their actions. The maybes were single encounters.

So, I would put it at minor.

Minor problem – although I have to watch my opponent in solo games like a hawk. That eniamht02 is not to be trusted!

I haven't been caught yet, so "not a problem".

Rare

Rare.

Very rare and very sad to do.

I know every time my opponent (me) cheats so its fair.

Rare, and mostly self-limiting; group I mostly play with wouldn't put up for long.

And, Ney Ney is right; such a person is usually shunned for being just pathetic.

Doug

Rare and 'self-correcting'.

Very rare. Can be easy to do by accident. If you're club has a dozen rules sets your using and you get the rules confused for just a second.

If your the GM and you're forced to play because there are not enough players. I hate it when that happens. Too easy to get accused of taking advantage of any fore-knowledge. I would rather cancel the game than to have even the possibility of that happening.

I would much rather that someone would point out what I am doing wrong than assume the I aware of it. "Bob, you keep moving your unit just a little too far."

Three in 50 years. Annoying when it occurs, but as a problem in wargaming, not to be compared with difficulties in rules or scenario design.

Rare.

Rare.

Rare.

Rare yes but not unknown.

I don't think I've ever encountered it.

I remember Donald Featherstone writing that the Brigadier was known for it.

Rare.

I've only seen one example in over forty years of Wargaming and it is a funny story. At a Wargaming club I used to belong to there where two bothers who were both very nice guys that I like but they did get extremely competitive with each other especially brother 2 who I think was the younger of the two. One evening at the club they played each other in a 15mm Naopleonic game. Brother 2 was defending a village and brother 1 was attacking so the first disagreement began with deployment. Brother 2 argued that he could play a 9lber in a church steeple since his forces had time to set up defenses. They argued about this for about fifteen minutes until brother 1 gave in so they could get the game going. Around the middle of the game, brother 1 moved his infantry to just outside of range of the church steeple artillery by about 3/4 of an inch. This infuriated brother 2 who really wanted to pound the opposing infantry. Brother 1 kept his infantry in place for several turns without so much as a formation change wearing on the patience of brother 2. Eventually someone put on the kettle so all the club members (except for brother 2) stepped into the kitchen area to grab a cup of tea. When the tea was served the players went back to their games including brother 1. It was his move so he made his move again leaving his infantry in place without moving. Next it was brother 2's turn and miracle of miracles brother 1's infantry was within range of the church steeple artillery. The argument that ensued after that was classic. Brother 1 finally gave in and marched all his forces off of the table ceding the game to the unbeatly mobile church steeple artillery. My young son was with me that evening thought a trophy was called for so when we got home he took a 10mm resin church and glued tracks from a 1/72 scale tank model to it so brother 2 could field a model for his artillery the next time. It remains the only example of cheating I can recall in all my years of gaming. Of course it may not have been cheating, it may just have been table shrinkage.

Never ran into it.
Of course I never noticed the smelly players either.

Minor problem, although I.do remember 12 units coming out of a small woods when at best it could hold 3.

My friend said, they fitted on his map.

Very rare.

I've seen it very rarely. More than outright cheating are the poor players who seek glory from the GM, whining until the GM gives in and moderates something in their favor or recognizes them over other – more deserving – players for their spirit. These are the 'everyone gets a trophy' kinds of players who need to stop pretending that they have any kind of sportsmanlike conduct in their miserable hides.

I think Iv'e experienced only two and heard of one other (confirmed to my mind) incidents in almost 40 years of competition games.

David B

Rare for me too.

I deliberately cheated in a game of Bar Lev (an Arab-Israeli war board game) once many years ago – I used a slightly damaged dice that I had previously discovered much to my annoyance threw a lot of 1's and 2's (which is good in Bar Lev) to shutdown a particularly annoying and offensive member of the club – and it did – he was the Israeli and his morale broke, something that had never happened before. The guy left our club soon after and peace reigned. For me, the means justified the end. The dice was disposed of.

Rare.

Since I read all the responses before I responded does that mean I cheated?

Don't remember meeting a cheater, other annoyances yes but no cheaters.

Rare.

I cheat every game. Of course, I cheat myself out of helpful rules and army specific rules.

Depends on the person, I have seen several blatant cases, all were called on it. They also all denied doing so even though in each case there were at least 3 different witnesses, they all were disinvited from the gaming group, although in each case they could have stayed if they would have admitted to wrongdoing and apologized.

Rare

Pretty rare, I think. It is really self-defeating conduct because any cheating behavior is never forgotten by anyone who witnessed it. The cheater simply doesn't get invited to games afterwards.

I was accused of cheating once. Playing a board game, it was my turn to roll the dice. I didn't shake/throw very well and they just sort of plopped down without tumbling. Without even looking at the numbers or thinking, I scooped them up and actually rolled them. My opponent exclaimed that I couldn't roll twice. I was honestly a little confused because to my mind the first was a drop, not a roll.

I guess I'm just a very bad person.

So rare as not to be a problem.

Over a span of almost 50 years of gaming I've seen probably 8-12 cheaters. I guess that qualifies as a minor problem.

I have had very few overt cheating incidents in the games I have run over 30+ years of cons. What I tend to see more frequently are what I call fudging. These are players that move up, then back, then up again a couple of times, each time gaining another 1/4 – 1/2" of movement. Silly stuff really.

Persistent, niggling "gamesmanship" is as bad as cheating

What's your definition of 'cheating'? But if I had to say – infinitesimally rare. I would say I have seen maybe two cases where I believe the person concerned deliberately sought to cheat. In 40 years that's a very very low percentage.

Wow, you guys are lucky. Around here its not just a major problem, its a MAJOR problem. Probably happened in something like 25-50% of the games I've played, and not by me. It's why I gave up on GW games after 30 years. I could type up specific examples for hours. To sum up, I remember one overheard conversation:

Player A: "I don't play with so-and-so, he cheats."
Player B: "Everybody cheats, its your job to catch them."

We used to have one guy who was semi-infamous. He'd get tiny clear dice only he was ever close enough to see and he'd roll and "announce" the "results." But, the guy was so damned likeable in all other respects and also generous to a fault, so we all just winked at it.

Minor problem. Thankfully, it's usually a person who's a cheater (and thus avoided and/or closely watched) than a whole group with a culture of cheating (which I would find abysmal).

I have seen a few.
My favourite was a chap who in an ACW game discovered that because his troops were in a wood they benefited from cover. So as his troops advanced the trees came with them (the trees were individually based). It became obvious over time that the wood was moving so I said:
Has Birnam wood come to Dunsinane?

I assume that we are talking deliberate cheats rather than misreading of rules which I come across quite a bit. Real cheating is rare, but when it does happen it totally hacks me off and spoils the day!