Cheating

"Cheating" in HabitRPG is a matter of opinion and circumstance. One person may feel it's cheating to list things like getting out of bed and brushing teeth, while another person may need those Dailies for motivation or reminders. One person might have a Daily for an hour of study, while another might have a Daily for any studying at all. And one person might prefer to keep doing Dailies while sick, but another might check into the Inn (or grey out Dailies) at the first sniffle.

That's all fine. HabitRPG is here to help players learn good habits (and unlearn bad ones), not to stress them out and make them feel guilty. The right way to play is however is most productive for you.

To that end, "problem cheating" would be any dishonest play that keeps you from being productive (possibly rewarding you as though you had been).

Cheating Yourself
HabitRPG is not a traditional game. There are no high scores. You are playing against yourself, against the version of you who you don't want to be. Therefore, the following methods of problem-cheating only hurt your own efforts to improve.
 * Using Fix Character Values to give yourself extra Levels, Mana or gold.
 * Clicking things you didn't do.
 * Giving yourself Habits like "breathing".
 * Setting a task Difficulty to "Hard" (making it worth more gold and Experience Points) even when it's easy for you to do.
 * Greying Dailies out for no reason.
 * Doing a custom Reward without paying the gold.

Motivations for Cheating
Wanting to get to a high level

Alternative: Take the time to earn it yourself! Let's be honest: Since Fix Character Values exists, hitting a high level in a short time doesn't impress anyone. Additionally, you'll miss out on valuable tutorials if you instantly level past them.

Don't want character/partymates to die
Alternatives:
 * If you're near leveling up, look for any Dailies, To-Dos, or good Habits you can complete easily. When you level, you'll regain health.
 * Take a look at the User Data Display Tool and see what Dailies will do the most damage, and focus on those.
 * If you're in a party with a Healer, ask for healing.
 * Other classes can use skills to decrease the damage they take, e.g. by buffing CON or increasing the task value of uncompleted Dailies.
 * Use a Health Potion. If you can't afford one, consider selling your excess Eggs, Hatching Potions, or Food to get enough gold.
 * Warn the others in your party: They may be able to gain enough health to protect themselves from your damage.
 * Add an "indulgency" to your list of rewards: A pre-determined amount of gold you can pay to set a task to "not required" for today. Don't forget to fix the required days tomorrow!

Burned out, no motivation to do Dailies
Alternatives:
 * Reduce your number of Dailies, perhaps greying some out or moving them to Habits.
 * Use a Fortify Potion if your tasks have gone red. This will return them to yellow, making them less damaging (and less threatening looking). You can get a similar effect by deleting and remaking tasks, but you will lose your task history.
 * Take a look at the Burnout article for additional advice.

Picking yourself up after cheating
If you've been cheating, and you've decided to not cheat, that's great. You don't have to do anything else! But if it would be more motivating to you, you can use Fix Character Values to remove the gold and levels you gained, or even look at options for starting over.

Cheating at challenges
Since many Challenges are competitions, checking off things you haven't done in a Challenge is actually cheating against other people. Many challenge creators will look at their challenge data to weed out obvious cheaters or include tasks like declaring progress in Tavern chat or specific Guilds.

If you're joining a Challenge to cheat in an attempt to get free gems, remember, they don't provide anything that isn't cosmetic (Backgrounds, hair colors) or obtainable by other means (partying with someone who is providing quest scrolls). You can also get Gems by contributing to HabitRPG, and some guilds may have smaller Challenges you can complete honestly.

Not Paying for Custom Rewards
You don't always want to pay gold to do something you like, but the point is for it to be a reward. So reward yourself for your hard work!

Sticking to one's custom Rewards plan is a habit in itself. And that means things like practice, accountability, and tools are useful there! For practice, start by making the Reward really inexpensive, perhaps something like 1 gold for 30 minutes, so it's barely a decision to pay it. Then use it a lot, until "before I start gaming, I pay some gold" comes naturally. You could even make a Habit or Daily task out of it.

You're not alone!
Remember that there is a friendly community to cheer you on, and friends to help your motivation! Don't just give in to cheating-take a moment and relax, maybe share your troubles with some friendly people in the Tavern to help you through your day and maybe help you get a few more of those monster dailies done! You may also be more motivated with a Party. You can find Parties at The Archery and the Party Wanted (Looking for Group) guild, or you can invite your friends to start one with you!