The title says it all…but you may be wondering why. Let me give you an example that recently happened to a friend of mine, a DM who is also running a virtual game on a virtual tabletop.
One of the benefits of virtual dice over physical dice is that, when someone rolls publicly on a VTT or using a bot in a Discord server or similar, the result is right up there on the screen in front of everyone. At an in-person game it’s hard for the DM to check the roll of a person on the opposite end of the table. He must rely on the people sitting next to said player to keep them honest.
It’s that lack of other players sitting next to the player rolling the die that’s the problem with mixing physical dice with virtual play. My friend had a player who refused to roll using the VTT. He wouldn’t roll using ANY digital method that could be monitored by the other players.
And he was blatantly fudging his rolls if not cheating outright.
His stats were three 18s, two 17s, and a 16. This is a DnD 5e game. Now, I’ve actually had a player who legitimately rolled similar stats on a digital platform–statistically it’ll happen from time to time–but added to that…
…he succeeded on every attack and every saving throw and every skill check. At level 2. (Okay, I don’t know if it was every, but close enough. I mean, the guy was barely even trying to hide his cheating.)
I know most players won’t do this. Most players won’t cheat this blatantly. But the lack of accountability to players seated next to them or players seeing the roll results onscreen will tempt A LOT of people to at least fudge the occasional roll or two.
Don’t let this happen. Make sure your players understand that they will be doing all their rolls on whatever digital platform everyone else is rolling on and doing it publicly.
What do you think? Do you allow this? Have you experienced it? Tell me about it below in the comments.