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Playing out the natural consequences of your actions in an RPG is bad GMing now.

Started by King Tyranno, September 27, 2023, 09:24:16 AM

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King Tyranno

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 02, 2023, 01:48:11 PM
Quote from: Brad on October 01, 2023, 08:26:13 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 28, 2023, 08:57:48 PM
Quote from: Brad on September 28, 2023, 06:36:16 AM
Anyway, anyone complaining about how Gygax handled this has never actually played/run games with a munchkin/powergamer OR they are in fact that player themselves.

Pfft. No. I've had a raging tall-tale-er and a min/maxxer in my play group. (School chums from back in the day.)

One day the tall-tale-er came to a new campaign with a character he rolled up away from the table. He got straight 18's! We all laughed and I said "If you can roll straight 18's, you can do it again while I'm looking." And then he made a real character and we got on with the game.

Min/maxxers are a bit harder to deal wtih. They usually play honestly, but squeeze the game for every fractional percentage of power. I did appreciate the guy because he was also into the RP aspect, and wasn't an ass about powergaming. Dude put some of my homebrews through the paces. Dealing with that player was where I learned not to try and out-game the powergamer. That just leads to an arms race of tactics and strategy that leaves the other players in the dust. That kind of attitude is best left to the wargames and board games and not an RPG.

I've dealt with my share of powergamers and problem gamers and gamers who have a bad night and act like jackasses. The best reaction is, like I've been saying, act like a flippin adult, tell them what the problem is, and either help them correct it, or have them take a game off.

You're talking about a reasonable person, then. Real Men and Loonies or whatever the hell that thing was...we all know what "munchkins" are and they deserve only death. A dude who games the system a bit but dials it back when asked is probably just someone with system mastery, which is a completely different thing.
You're thinking of 'Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies, and Munchkins'.

The first three are manageable, though they may derail your game in different (albeit entertaining) ways. The last is someone to be kicked to the curb.

Personally I've only ever seen people be Munchkins with crunchy systems heavy games like DnD 3.5, 4E and Pathfinder. You don't actually need all that much intelligence IRL to subvert those games. You're just taking advantage of the systems and it's oversights. If I'm playing something like B/X or other more rules light games Munchkin bullshit starts to decrease. You'll still see it in something like Star Wars D6 but you have more options to curtail it. Like banning Jedi or lowering the amount of points to spend in character generation. But Munchkin rubbish is a big reason why I run away from crunchy games. The most foolproof way to stop it is to do something along the lines of what Gary did. You're not actively harming the PCs. You're enabling them to create the natural consequences of their actions. I don't see why that's a bad thing that makes Gary Gygax into a heckin gross fascist.

Scooter

Quote from: King Tyranno on October 08, 2023, 10:14:04 AM
Personally I've only ever seen people be Munchkins with crunchy systems heavy games like DnD 3.5, 4E and Pathfinder. You don't actually need all that much intelligence IRL to subvert those games. You're just taking advantage of the systems and it's oversights. If I'm playing something like B/X or other more rules light games Munchkin bullshit starts to decrease.

Totally agree.  I have never seen it accomplished with the C&C games I've run.  Probably because it is not crunchy and is designed towards roll playing and not "builds" and similar mechanics.
There is no saving throw vs. stupidity