Topic of the Week: Cheating and/or Lying

Boardgames
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This goes a lot of ways. Some games you are supposed to cheat. In some form. Other games you really aren’t, but it’s expected. Finally, you have games where cheating is off the table (I’m not sure if that is a pun or some other form of low humor?)

Let’s tackle each of those:

  1. Lying or cheating as a mechanic. How do you feel about games where misinformation or subterfuge is a scripted part of the game? I’m thinking of the Mafia family, Sheriff, Coup, etc. Also that stupid (editorial) card game where you are just putting cards face down on a pile and trying to slip extra cards down until someone calls BS on a play. Favorite styles or implementations?
  2. Lying or cheating as a social expectation. Sometimes a game gets a metagame. I’m thinking first of Mench Argere Dich Nicht (sp) a.k.a. German Ludo a.k.a. Pachisi is the Wurst, where it’s just Ludo but apparently in Germany there is a robust metagame around altering your dice or moving your pieces when it isn’t your turn, which has given the game a second life. Have you encountered games where a metagame of cheating has been layered over it?
  3. Lying or cheating as cheating. Have you ever tried it? Do tell the story. Have you ever encountered it? Who was cheating and how did it go?

Lastly I guess there is cheating during solo or two-handed games. What’s your approach to this when you are just playing yourself?

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I haven’t heard of this. … Might be something people with fewer boardgames on their shelves do?
I haven’t played Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht since my grandma taught me Skat and Mühle. Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht was ALWAYS the worst of all the games in the Spielesammlung Box.

We had good fun playing Mogelmotte (Cheating Moth) and while I learned Spirit Island at SPIEL my partner was stuck with the kids playing Mogelmonopoly which apparently was more fun than actual Monopoly…

I tend to enjoy games well enough where lying is a mechanic–many social deduction games require it. As do bluffing games. I must mention that one forum BotC game again which taught me the horrifying power of lying without compunction.

However, my partner hates playing any kind of lying/bluffing game with me, because I can see right through every one of his lies. But only his. One friend of ours is the best liar. I never catch him. Another guy we used to play with was so outrageous with his lies in semi-cooperative games that we fell for it every time because it was impossible to believe he would be doing it again…

Depending on my stress-level, I cannot play games that require me to expend social energy through lying or bluffing.

Lying about what I will do on my next turn. Trying to hide my intentions by verbally obfuscating them… that’s fair game in any game. As is giving the opposing Spymaster bullshit ideas for clues while on their turn in Codenames. It’s within the limits of trash talk at my table.

But actually cheating in a multiplayer is a big no-no. Especially not in a competitive setting. And I cannot remember doing so. Or have anyone but children try it. And if anyone even accidentally does something like that they get called out immediately. Nobody here tolerates cheating.

However, I have cheated on my solos or retconned stuff on my 2 handed learning games to see what would have happened had I been smarter. Sometimes I make rules mistakes… accidentally. Or with complex gamse I lose track of some of what’s going on… and then need to retcon my turn.

Especially when getting back into Ark Nova solos, I swear the first two games I am horrible at round tracking and mess up by giving myself an extra round. Since I tend to play these in waves of ~10, I kind of get extra rounds on 20% of my Ark Nova solos -.- This is the game where I really notice it, this happens despite there being a solo-mechanic that really helps tracking the rounds which I conveniently forget between waves? I don’t beat myself up over the accidental extra rounds. I know I am terrible at Speed-Ark Nova. I lose most of the solos except the ones with the extra rounds.

Btw German words for cheating:

  • mogeln
  • bescheissen
  • betrügen
  • schummeln
  • mauscheln
  • falsch spielen
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I’ve been interested how in learning East Asian games (fight the landlord, up and down the river, etc) you find two things:

  1. The deal is always done by the players. Players take turns drawing a card off the top of the deck instead of a dealer. I don’t know if this is an anti-cheating measure or more of an egalitarian measure where everyone has equal access to spoil the deal.
  2. A section in the rules dedicated to cheating. Like, if someone is caught cheating in this way, this is the consequence. If they are caught cheating that way, this is the consequence.

In both cases I see this assumption that people are going to try to cheat, which was interesting and foreign to my own sensibilities.

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Well, I might be from a place that’s famous for producing rules sticklers. So maybe I am the wrong person to contribute to this topic :wink: Also as a software dev my whole job is about conforming to a bunch of rules.

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It seems to me then this is somehow part of the game. As long as there are rules for it… it really depends on the punishment?

There is something liberating about being “allowed” to break the rules f.e. with Mogelmotte or lying in social deduction games.

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Coup is great. Our whole family loves it.

Everyone but me also enjoys Cheating Moth. I don’t mind the idea of it - but I am useless at it!

In Coup I can take three coins with my Duke (that I don’t actually have) with the best of them, but I can’t fool anyone for a second with those bleedin’ moths…

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I love the standard Four Duke opening, proceeding to a lot of side-eyes and silence.

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East Asian as in which countries of origin? I can’t say I’ve noticed any cultural specificity about this, just a few scattered examples, like Blood Bowl, Food Chain Magnate, Galaxy Trucker, etc. Rules that punish players for making mistakes quite harshly, in games where it’s relatively easy to make mistakes in a way that would give you an unfair advantage.

I don’t remember any rules written in a way that anticipate players deliberately trying to cheat, except where “cheating” is part of the game.

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I cheat a lot. Like, not-official, actually-against-the-rules cheating in about… half the games I play?

It almost always manifests like this:
“So, how did you do, Mike?”
“I got a 75!”
“Wow, that’s fantastic! Andy?”
“67.”
“Pretty good! Justin?”
“74!”
“So close! (Quickly confirms my own score at 83) And I got a 65. I’ll do better next time!”

If the scores are tight, I’ll pick a score behind the winner. If the scores are really, really spread apart I’ll usually pick somewhere in the middle.

Not always. It really depends on who I’m playing with, and why, but yeah. Lots of cheating.

As for cheating to win, never.
I’ve never caught anyone cheating at my table, but I don’t really look for it: if you want to win that badly, I’ll just give it to you.

I have caught a fair number of players in “competitive” miniature games cheating. Usually by mis-remembering rules in very convenient ways (“Oh, I forgot that I can do this when you asked…”), or by rolling dice, declaring the result and sweeping up the dice before I can see them.

“Okay, I’m rolling 4d20… and that’s three hits!” (Grabs own dice)
“Oh? What did you roll.”
“Uh… 12, 14, 11, and a 2.”
“Okay. That’s three misses and a 2.”
(Infinity uses “Lower than target number” as a mechanic, so you want to get as close to your target as possible without going over)

Competitive Battletech is a bit of a gongshow (most people take it very casually and silly, but you will occasionally encounter a try-hard that uses really stupid corner-case rules to maximize their odds… last tournament I played a player who would run behind a hill and then intentionally have his mechs lie down to reduce Line of Sight, which is legal but also really questionable for a fun game)…WarMachine, for all its faults, was very precise about the rules and there was rarely cheating in that (a famous case in WarMachine circles saw a player at a national tournament cheat on camera with slight-of-hand… he pointed somewhere with his left and then simultaneously moved models with his right when his opponent was distracted… obviously forgetting he was on camera being watched by literally thousands of people and three judges).

I don’t usually invite people who are heavily invested in winning to my personal game nights. I want people who want to win, but want to have fun first and foremost, and if you can’t have fun while losing then you’re probably not going to be a good match for my social circle.

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I thought you might ask. China and SEA (specifically Cambodian and Vietnamese, iirc). I don’t know if I’ve read any localized rules for anything Korean.

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I looked up rules for Fight the Landlord (Dou dizhu?) and Up and Down the River, which both appear to be card games using standard decks, and couldn’t find any rules addressing cheating, or specifying dealing methods (in English, at least). Taking turns drawing cards to deal sounds horribly inefficient, and is not something I’ve seen in any traditional card games.

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I couldn’t agree more. If you aren’t at all interested in winning, you probably shouldn’t be playing. If you’re only interested in winning, you really shouldn’t be playing.

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I’ve cheated to lose sometimes against our children when they were small. And I’ll often - not cheat, exactly, but… play with scant regard for optimisation if the circumstances merit it. Nobody’s going to enjoy losing by miles to me because I’ve played this game fifty times and this is their flrst go. And I’m hardly going to get much joy from that either.

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I was going to say that I don’t usually like lying type games (Sheriff of Nottingham is fine because it’s fun and the whole point of the game, but Werewolf etc just needs straight-up deception of friends for as long as possible and that’s not for me).

But yes, I do lie in the way Marx says above. If I can see a route to win in the last round of a new game with my partner, I will be not-quite-as-clever as usual and they will win instead, and they will be overjoyed and believe in themselves, and will like the game from that point on. So I lie that way a lot.

Couldn’t avoid it with Spots recently, took the first game by a mile because my partner feels that going bust only happens to other people until it repeatedly happens to them, but they went for an absolute sprint in the last round of the 2nd game and pulled off the riskiest win of all time, and fair play really.

I also lie a bit when there are new players in a pub meetup, I concentrate on generating the maximum fun instead of focusing on winning.

100% this, yes.

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Just as a counter-point to this, if I caught someone doing this to let me win, I’d be furious. I’d find it patronising. Yes, chances are I wouldn’t notice a less than optimised move but if I thought you were lying about your score, that would piss me off greatly.

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Absolutely, and I don’t overdo it, but if I have a choice to be absolutely cutthroat or not, I’ll rarely choose the overkill.

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Exactly. I won’t throw the game; I just might not deliberately take that action that would mean they can never catch me.

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I would probably only do it to deliberately let someone win if they were an actual child.

But I would and do play less than optimally if not doing so would just be a total mismatch. And I don’t think I’d find it patronising if a more experienced player eased off against me to make a game of it.

I get no satisfaction from ruthlessly destroying a weaker opponent. Especially as if I’m playing a game with them they’re someone I know and care about.

Ruthlessly destroying an equally matched opponent if you get the chance is a other matter. Have at it.

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I probably over-stated it above. It’s more like “I play casual if this is their first game” and if I see a route to a win then (like chess) I feel like that’s already done and I can play some more differently.

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I guess I was more thinking of Marx’s picking a score. Its ok - I don’t expect to win when I first play a game.

And while it might not be nice to be utterly thrashed, I’ve learnt from people doing it - asking why they did what they did etc.

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