[Malthaussen]

Thoughts on "cheating."

1) How does one "cheat" in a game he plays by himself? I rather thought "cheating" was doing something in a competition not allowed under the rules in order to defeat one's opponent. Since CRPG games don't have "opponents" in any reasonable sense of the word, how can one cheat? Anything that adds to one's enjoyment in playing (or replaying) a game is hardly something to be ashamed of, rather it should be celebrated.

2) I've noted that many people denigrate "uber" characters as "unrealistic" or "cheating," and in the latest Bioware product, Icewind Dale 2, the design team decided that all characters should start out with equal points to add to their ability scores, permitting only the creation of rather pedestrian party members. This is silly, and IMO the programs MudMaster has made for the Infinity Engine games are the most useful "cheats" going. See, I like realistic characters, and I've known too many intelligent fighters to believe that an 18 strength necessarily indicates a 3 intelligence. Let me tell you about a friend of mine, named Allen. He is a 6-6 black dude, about 40 right now, who served for several years in the USMC's Force Recon. Force Recon is the USMC's equivilant of the SEALS or the Green Berets. Allen is very big, very strong, and very fast. He has a second or third degree black belt in some form or other of karate, and is an expert marksman in so many weapons you might as well stop counting. He also has a certified IQ of 145 and writes and studies poetry in his leisure time. He is qualified as both a combat medic and an explosives export, and works as a gunsmith/armorer these days. Now,this is a real person, and he's not so different from many people I've known who were in one form of Special Forces or other. How do you create such a character in a CRPG game without resorting to "cheating," unless you want to roll dice for an hour or so to "legitimately" come up with his stats, which probably would add up altogether to around 95-100 ability points?

3) The thing that confuses me most about the "cheating" issue is simply this: why is it an issue at all? Who is grading us on how we play a silly computer game? What difference does it make how we go about doing it? What bragging rights, monetary awards, or potential career advancements are at stake that makes "cheating" in a computer game an action to be deplored or defended?

4) As far as the issue of the intent of the designers is concerned, I find that a rather strange thing to worry about, also. Whose game is it, anyway? I've been a DM since the original D&D rules came out in 1976, and I always thought that the idea of creating a world was to give the players an opportunity to, ah, role-play. I'm not trying to beat my players, and certainly I don't think I'm "competing" with the Bioware design team when I play one of their products. The world-builder creates a world for the players to adventure in. After that, the "game" is "created" by the players, and how they go about it is their business. Surely, this is all the more so the case in a CRPG, which is not interactive in the first place.

5) In sum: cheat away. Whatever floats your boat. And let's face it, fans, replaying BG2 or any CRPG multiple times without some form of "cheating" or third-party assistance would get very old very fast.

Malthaussen